February 13, 2009
Bangkok (ASTV Manager Online) – About seventy delegates from ten countries yesterday attended a meeting on HIV-infected alien workers at the Amari Watergate Hotel.
Dr. Praj Boonyavongviroj, presided over the meeting. Participants were expected to conduct the national plans to serve alien workers in the Southeast Asian region.
The meeting is to prepare nations who send their workers to other countries and receive workers from other nations to cope with these alien workers.
It will also allow alien workers to access AIDs treatment, prevention and information.
Delegates were from countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.
Alien workers are currently in all corners of the world. They were attracted to work overseas due to economic and social factors.
Most workers traveled to richer countries for work. Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei as well as Thailand are their destination as they have better economies than other countries in this region.
Health problem which these countries face included non-communicative diseases and communicative diseases, especially AIDs.
The rate of HIV infection among alien workers was about 3 percent in January 2008, according to the department of disease control.
Dr. Praj said that Thailand could handle alien workers better than other nations since the public health ministry joined Rak Thai Foundation to develop public health system to serve these workers.
Excellence in public health has been promoted to cover ten provinces: Chiang Mai, Tak, Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan, Chonburi, Rayong, Phuket, Songkhla, Narathiwat and Pattani.
