Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

tripling to 1.25% between 1995 and 1997, the State Government acted decisively. It
set up an AIDS Society which worked closely with nongovernmental organizations
and other partners to develop an active AIDS prevention campaign. It hired a leading international advertising agency to promote condom use for risky sex in a humorous way, without offending the many people who do not engage in risky behaviour.
The campaign also attacked the ignorance and stigma associated with HIV infection,
encouraging compassion for those affected.
The bold safe-sex campaign has been a hit with its target market - young, sexually
active men. Regular behavioural surveillance shows that the number of visits to sex
workers and sex with other irregular partners has fallen, and condom use during risky
sexual encounters has risen dramatically.
Figure 4. Proportion of men reporting casual sex in the past year and
condom use with their last non-regular partner, Tamil Nadu,
India, 1996-1998
60
50
40 - casual sex, truckers
Scasual sex, factory workers
Scondom use, truckers
30 -*- condom use, factory workers
20.
10
0
1996 1997 1998
Source: AIDS Prevention and Control Project, Tamil Nadu, India, 1999
Figure 4 shows that more men than before decided to avoid sex with non-regular
partners, while men who continued to have casual sex were far more likely to use a
condom. The groups illustrated here - factory workers and truck drivers - are thought
to represent men with a medium and a high likelihood, respectively, of engaging in
risky sexual behaviour.
Thailand's well-publicized success in curbing a rampant heterosexual epidemic has
brought to light other routes of transmission against which HIV prevention programmes have been far less successful. HIV continues to spread virtually unchecked

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