HIGH-PROFILE campaigns to encourage men to wear a condom to avoid HIV
infection seem to work. A campaign in Thailand seems to have dramatically
reduced the number of new cases in young men.
The campaign, launched by the Thai government in 1990, included the
distribution of free condoms to brothels and media campaigns to urge men to wear
them. Since then, the rate of infection among young Thai men has fallen from
10.4 per cent in May 1991 to 6.8 per cent in November 1995, a team of
researchers report in last week鈥檚 issue of the New England Journal of
Medicine.
鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 mean that the AIDS epidemic is over or even under control,鈥�
says Kenrad Nelson, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who led the study.
鈥淏ut it looks like there is a way to control the problem to some extent.鈥�
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Thai society may be more receptive to campaigns promoting condom use than
some other countries, says Nelson. Literacy is among the highest in the world,
and the country is predominantly Buddhist, a religion that raises no moral
objections to condom use. Moreover, campaigns can be conducted openly because
commercial sex carries less of a stigma in Thailand than in many other
societies.