Myanmar’s HIV/AIDS security threat

By David Fullbrook

An AIDS warning on a billboard in Chaungtha, Myanmar.

BANGKOK – Is Myanmar’s HIV/AIDS situation heading for a pandemic on scale with the human disasters seen in Africa?

Precise data about the AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it are scant in the secretive military-run country, which until recently banned all local reporting on HIV and AIDS cases for reasons of national security. But many independent public-health experts believe that Myanmar is heading in a dangerous direction, a public-health risk large enough potentially to have adverse effects on domestic and regional security.