An estimated 500,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in
Thailand, and rates are rising among young people. Young people
are becoming sexually active at an earlier age and many are not
using protection. Significant numbers of young people also
belong to especially high-risk groups, including injecting drug
users, sex workers, and men who have sex with men. More
positively, rates of transmission of HIV from parents to
children have been reduced to below 3 per cent from
approximately 30 per cent 20 years ago when interventions were
still largely unavailable. Rates of transmission have
progressively declined over this period. This is largely due to
the government’s impressive efforts to provide counseling,
testing and anti-retroviral medicine (ARVs) to pregnant women
nationwide, and commitment to provide more effective
interventions as they became available. Nonetheless, at least
one child still gets the HIV virus from his or her mother every
day. Without access to ARVs, nearly 50 per cent of HIV-infected
childre