HIV Treatment for underprivileged in thailand at PULSE CLINICS by PULSE Social Enterprise

• Thailand has one of the highest HIV prevalences in Asia and the Pacific, accounting for 9% of the region’s total population of people living with HIV.
• Although the epidemic is in decline, prevalence remains high among key affected groups, with young people from key populations particularly at risk.
• Thailand is the first country to effectively eliminate mother-to-child transmissions, with a transmission rate of less than 2%.
• In 2018, Thailand began to scale up PrEP in order to make it nationally available to people at high risk of HIV, making it a leader in the region.
• Thailand hopes to be one of the first countries to end AIDS by 2030. However to achieve this, significantly more young people and key affected populations need to be reached.

ERADICATING HIV IN THAILAND?

Of Thailand’s population of nearly 70 million, an estimated 470,000 people were living with HIV and 14,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2019.

Thailand’s HIV epidemic is concentrated among certain key populations. Those most affected are men who have sex with men (sometimes referred to as MSM), who account for around 40% of new infections each year, sex workers and their clients, around 10% of new infections, transgender people and people who inject drugs (sometimes referred to as PWID), around 10% of new infections each. Migrants and prisoners are also more vulnerable to HIV than others in the country.

Young people from key populations are particularly at risk of acquiring HIV. In 2018, around half of new HIV infections in Thailand occurred among people aged 15-24.

HIV prevalence is declining in Thailand due to successful HIV prevention programmes. A study has shown that nearly 10 million people avoided HIV transmission because of early intervention programmes with key affected populations between 1990 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2018, AIDS-related deaths declined by a third (32%) and new infections fell by 59%.

THE IMPACT OF PULSE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

Since 2016, PULSE CLINICS by PULSE Social Enterprise has been one of the major factor that help reduce HIV infection in Thailand by

• offering free HIV testing to more than 30,000 people key population at risk in Thailand.
• link people who tested positive for HIV to receive free treatment at government hospitals throughout Thailand
• prescribing PrEP and PEP to ten of thousands of people in Thailand.
• providing free HIV treatment to more than 100 underprivileged patients at PULSE CLINICS
• provided more than 30,000 condoms to the people in Bangkok and Phuket.