Myanmar, UNAIDS Establish Joint Program To Combat Country’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Myanmar and UNAIDS on Thursday announced a new three-year joint program to support the country's national HIV/AIDS strategic plan and increase capacity for prevention and treatment of the disease, Xinhua News Agency reports. According to UNAIDS, $21.3 million of the $51 million needed to implement the program has been contributed by donors, including Britain's Department of International Development ($15.7 million), Norway ($823,000) and Sweden ($4.7 million), and more than $7.5 million is already available for contracts this year. The program, adopted by the United Nations Expanded Theme Group on HIV/AIDS (Myanmar) in January, aims to reduce the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases among injection drug users and their partners and increase AIDS awareness among the population, particularly among young people. The World Health Organization estimates that Myanmar had 510,000 HIV cases and 3,817 AIDS cases at the end of 2000, according to Xinhua (Xinhua News Agency, 4/24).
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