While HIV infections are falling overall in Thailand, they are rising among young people aged between 15 and 24.
This is according to a study by UNICEF, entitled "Situational Analysis of Young People at High Risk of HIV Exposure in Thailand."
In 1990s, HIV was the leading cause of death in Thailand but since then there has been a sharp decline, though it is still the fifth leading cause of death in the country.
The report suggests that because of Thailand's success at tackling HIV infections, many from the younger generation have become complacent, or see it as something that affects the older generation.
The report also suggests that social media has had a role to play. Before, grassroots activists could visit gay bars and clubs and hold events, talks, and forums.
These days, dating apps allow for people to meet in private. Activists and health experts have reported that they feel there is less of a physical community to reach out to.
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Tho gay men should be their own education.
Who here doesn't know the risks of unprotected sex?
If you don't then don't have sex until you do. You are at risk otherwise.
I think we should accept this and maybe it is time to change strategy for some people and provide them with Preventive Exposure Prophylaxis.
PrEP.
However I am happy to know young people who's very first question will be: Do you have a rubber?
Since the election of the socially moralistic government of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001, the government run anti-HIV education programmes have been vastly reduced. Thailand is a deeply conservative society, despite what goes on in some of the bigger cities. Just as the country has one of the largest rates of young teen pregnancies in the world, the sad fact is there are vast numbers of youngsters who know little about HIV. In the dozens of relatively new saunas that have sprung up in recent years away from the centre of Bangkok, the clientele is almost exclusively Thai-for-Thai and bareback sex is the norm rather than the exception.
It's easy to suggest - who doesn't know the risks of unprotected sex, or to say that young people like to experiment. The facts remain that far too many young Thais have little or no real idea of what HIV is and what it can lead to. There are still many stories of teenagers who contract HIV and are too shy either to go for testing or if they know their condition to do anything about it. They then return to their villages merely to die.
Sex education in several Asian countries remains a sort of taboo subject. Until programmes specifically aimed at younger teens are adopted, I fear that Thailand's incidence of HIV in that age grouping will just continue to rise.
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