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OPERATION CONDOM: AIDS awareness campaigners in Bangkok
distributing free condoms to promote safe sex. The campaign has
proved successful in Thailand and Cambodia. -- AFP
AFA depends mainly on volunteers for the activities it organises,
from running an anonymous HIV testing centre and telephone helpline
to a variety of support groups for people with HIV and Aids.
'We have been doing what we can in the past 15 years, but we are
limited by resources,' Mr Wong said.
'We welcome more partners and the chance to sit and talk to the
Health Ministry on expanding our role.'
He was responding to criticism levelled against AFA by Senior
Minister of State for Health Dr Balaji Sadasivan, who told Tan Tock
Seng Hospital doctors on Wednesday that Singapore was facing an
'alarming Aids epidemic'.
He said the 'explosion in HIV infection' affected mainly
homosexuals and heterosexual men who had casual sex abroad.
He also criticised a statement on AFA's website that reads:
'Not everyone who has sex contact with an infected person will get
infected.'
He said the statement was misleading and 'may actually make things
worse by promoting unsafe sex'.
Pointing to a recent surge in HIV infections among gay men, he also
said that AFA had failed to educate the gay community about the
disease.
He urged the Commmunicable Disease Centre at Tan Tock Seng to stop
relying on AFA alone, and spearhead future Aids education efforts
with other community partners.
Yesterday, Mr Wong said Aids had afflicted the mainstream
population in Singapore a decade ago, and was not confined to
homosexuals.
'It's time the country woke up to the fact that Aids is becoming a
major problem and affects everyone, not just the homosexual
community.'
The majority of people with HIV and Aids are heterosexual men, but
Mr Wong pointed out that cases of women with HIV more than doubled
in the 1990s.
He said that everyone had a role to play and noted that the Health
Ministry itself had 'shied away' from a public campaign promoting
sexual abstinence and condom use, which had proven successful in
countries like Thailand and Cambodia.
'We need a massive campaign to let people know that it is all right
to use condoms. We need to de-link condom use from promiscuity,' he
said.
Mr Wong also recommended government subsidies for HIV medication
that can delay the onset of Aids. These can cost between $12,000
and $15,000 a year.
Subsidies were even more important for pregnant women, he
said.
With early treatment, there is a less than 5 per cent chance of the
virus being passed from mother to child, according to a KK Women's
and Children's Hospital spokesman. Since 1997, 20 HIV infected
babies have been born in Singapore.
Mr Wong said some people refused to get tested to find out their
HIV status because they knew they could not afford the
treatment.
'Subsidies can help in prevention. People will be more ready to
step forward to get screened if they can get help,' he
said.
