HIV cases in Thailand drop below 10,000 a year
New cases of HIV in Thailand have fallen to less than 10,000 per year thanks to the increased use of condoms and advances in preventive medicine, the Disease Control Department's Bureau of AIDS, TB and STIs revealed on Thursday.
Bureau director Dr Saman Futrakul told the National News Bureau of Thailand that the rate of new HIV cases per year has dropped from its peak of 150,000 to between 6,000 and 10,000. He said the Public Health Ministry plans to lower the rate further to less than 1,000 a year by 2030.
Dr Pannee Pitisutham, head of the Vaccine Center of the Mahidol University's Faculty of Tropical Medicine, said the center's AIDS vaccine development program, which has entered its third phase, got a promising result – an increase in immune cells - in the latest test conducted on male HIV-positive volunteers.
