| |
AIDS pushes Thai life
expectancy down
By Richard S Ehrlich
BANGKOK - AIDS has shortened the life expectancy
of people in Thailand by almost one-and-a-half years,
resulting in the average Thai dying just after his or
her 68th birthday, and the grim downward spiral will
worsen, according to a UN investigation.
"Life
expectancy has dropped nearly a year-and-a-half," Hakan
Bjorkman, United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
deputy resident, said in a taped interview.
"The
reason for that is HIV/AIDS-related mortality, which is
now rising, so there is a revision of the life
expectancy," he said, referring to the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that can cause acquired
immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). "There are over
700,000 people in Thailand living with HIV/AIDS, and
that is a lot of people who are gradually becoming ill
and dying.
"... In fact Thailand has been very
successful in slowing the spread of the epidemic. It has
actually reduced the number of new infections by 80
percent on a yearly basis. But the epidemic started 15
years ago and there are a lot of people - cumulatively 1
million people - who got infected, and they continue to
become infected every year, 30,000 [new cases] a year, a
lot of people," he said.
The disease can take
several years to kill a person. Many of the people
infected during the past 15 years are now dying and
"therefore life expectancy falls".
In 1991, new
infections reached a "peak" of 142,819 people, and the
rate in Thailand has fallen ever since, according to UN
medical data.
Of the 1 million people stricken
with HIV during the past 15 years, however, an estimated
250,000 have already died, including at least 55,000
people in 2001, according to the most recent UN
estimates.
In more bad news for Thais, life
expectancy will get shorter and shorter in the coming
years, the UNDP official warned. "AIDS-related mortality
will continue to rise for a number of years because of
the delay between infection and then illness and death
could be 10 years. So we are now seeing that delayed
impact in terms of people dying."
Thailand's
modernization, improved health care, higher standard of
living and other improvements had been allowing Thais to
live longer, until AIDS arrived. "The life expectancy
had been inching up slowly for the past 30 years and
reached just over 70 years last year. It is now down to
just above 68 years," Bjorkman said.
"It is a
small drop, but a significant drop and ... unless these
people who are living with HIV get access to these drugs
that can actually prolong their lives, life expectancy
will continue to fall," he said.
New
anti-retroviral therapy - already produced and available
in Thailand - could treat HIV and AIDS and save lives,
but the slow rate of access to these medicines has
caused problems, according to the UN.
Only
10,000 people have access to anti-retroviral drugs in
Thailand, the UN said. The government promised to boost
that number to 50,000 by the end of 2004, it added.
Bjorkman said Thailand's painful descent was
discovered during the UNDP's newest Human Development
Index investigation into the quality of life worldwide,
made public this Tuesday.
If the death rate from
AIDS were not factored in, Thailand's life-expectancy
estimate would have shown a slight increase, according
to UN officials.
Among the 175 nations rated in
the Human Development Report for 2003, based on overall
"life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted
real income", Thailand was No 74, below Romania and
Saudi Arabia but above Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Norway achieved No 1. Australia made fourth
place, while the United States logged in at seventh, one
spot higher than Canada. Japan scored nine and the
United Kingdom ranked 13. The lowest 25 countries were
in Africa, with Sierra Leone trailing last.
(Copyright 2003 Richard S Ehrlich.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
