NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh departed Sunday on a three-day visit to Myanmar that underscores India's quest for energy supplies and concerns about China's strong influence in the Southeast Asian country.BANGKOK – About 85,000 HIV-infected people in Myanmar are not getting treatment due to a lack of funding, despite renewed international engagement with the government amid a wave of political reform, according to a report released today.
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders warned that the situation in Myanmar could worsen after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was forced to cut worldwide funding due for release this year because of a shortfall in contributions pledged by donors.
The money was expected to provide HIV drugs for 46,500 people in Myanmar, along with treatment for another 10,000 people sicken by drug-resistant tuberculosis in the country, it said.
Tuberculosis cases in Myanmar – a major killer of HIV patients – are nearly triple the global rate, as difficult to treat forms of the disease that do not respond to common treatment continue to surge.
In 2009, the U.N. estimated 240,000 people were infected with HIV and about 18,000 were dying from it annually in Myanmar, which has one of the world’s worst health systems.
Doctors Without Borders provides anti-retrovirus therapy drugs to about 23,000 people at 23 clinics nationwide, funding more than half of all HIV treatment being provided to nearly 40,000 patients, said Peter Paul de Groote, who heads the organization’s Myanmar operation.
The country receives a fraction of the international assistance provided elsewhere, largely because many nations did not support the former reclusive military government that ruled for nearly half a century. But last year, a nominally civilian government took office and launched unexpected sweeping reforms that have been applauded by the international community.
“Regardless of what is happening in the country, the people that are in need of treatment, need treatment,” de Groote said. “Of course, we all hope that the developments as they seem to be going in that direction will lead to more money into the country, but, in general, I think this money should be coming in regardless of what the situation is.”
