Thailand is often hailed as a success story in the fight against HIV and AIDS when back in the 90s the Thai government implemented a 100% condom policy in brothels and amongst sex workers. But there is an area where Thailand has failed deplorably, it is in providing treatment and care to its injecting drug users of whom half are thought to be HIV-positive.

“The people we work with who are drug users, many of them injecting drug users, almost all of them are HIV-positive, yet none of them have access to the services they need,” said Karyn Kaplan, director of policy and development with the Thai Aids Treatment Action Group. “And this is because the government has neglected the issue of injecting drug users and HIV even though there’s been a 20-year epidemic raging amongst this community.”

According to Thai activists nearly 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers were killed during Thaksin’s war on drug in 2003, with the broad support of a population that sees drug addicts as outcasts. Stigma and discrimination extend to the health service. Despite being entitled to receive free treatment, many drug users are denied ARVs by the health service and many more are too afraid to seek treatment, aware that their health records may be shared with the police.

One HIV patient reports that “when he told a nurse he was infected by using dirty needles to inject drugs, he was refused ART. He says the medical workers said he had to stop using methadone. It took five attempts to get treatment before he found a doctor who said it was not a problem for him to take methadone along with ART.”

There is a lot to do to stop the epidemics amongst drug users and if one good thing has come out of the 2008 AIDS conference is the acknowledgement of the existence of groups of people with high risk of HIV infection but who have so far received little attention and whose plight don’t trigger much compassion amongst the general public.

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