Thailand 100% Condom Programme

The commercial sex trade in Thailand really was the cause for HIV to spread throughout the country. The first case was diagnosed there in 1984, three years after HIV hit the headlines in the MEDW. The virus spread rapidly from there, men who had the virus would then give it to their wives, and then onto the children, and would often blame visiting a brothel for them having the virus. The Thai government decided this could not go on and so sent officials to the brothels to get the 'ladies' within tested for HIV. By 1990 30% of all prostitutes tested had the virus.

The Thai government decided that although there are laws against prostitution they deemed it safer to promote safer sex, as it is hard enough to change peoples actions, let alone stop those actions and change their morals. They offered 60million condoms nationally to all brothels so that no brothel would feel like it were losing custom by requiring a condom for sex, and led hard hitting TV and radio propaganda talking of all commercial sexual exchanges to be conducted with a condom.

It was an incredibly effective program. Within 5 years, the percentage of commercial sex acts where condoms were used increased from 15% to over 90%, and the number of men coming in with STDs decreased enormously. The quickly spreading HIV epidemic was largely brought under control. Although the 100% condom program couldn't eliminate all HIV transmission, in its early years it was one of the most effective government-instituted HIV control programs in history.

However, as the condom programme was aimed at commercial sex workers, it never really entered the public eye, as a result most new cases of HIV nowadays are in married women.

Essentially this is like the UK needle exchange, where drug users can exchange their dirty needles or syringes at the back door of most pharmacies in exchange for clean ones to prevent the spread of HIV. This is a lesson the MEDW is havaing to learn, just because you make something illegal, it does not mean that it will stop happening, as a result regulation and safety measures in illegal activities is making a more effective battle against HIV.