HIV in Cambodia

Cambodia has the highest rate of HIV infection in Asia, with 2.6% of the adult population, or 170,000 estimated infected persons. A further 7,000 infected persons are children under the age of 14, 3,000 of these are in seriously need of life-lengthening ARV drugs.

Northwest Cambodia along the Thai border is the hardest hit region, due to the presence of large numbers of soldiers and de-mining teams. Along Highway 5, the only road transport route to Thailand, truck drivers and traders are spreading the HIV virus at an alarming rate. Thmar Koul District is especially hard hit, but since it is not a large centre for development aid activity, little has been done to combat the epidemic there.

Infection Numbers Skyrocketing in Rural Areas

Rural areas are particularly vulnerable due to a lack of resources for public awareness campaigns. By 2001 some progress had been made in urban Cambodia in educating sex workers and other at-risk groups about the dangers of HIV / AIDS. However this success did not extend to more rural areas - and it is in the villages that HIV infection rate is growing fastest. A typical scenario from a rural village: a husband travels to the city for trade or other business, frequents the brothels there, contracts the HIV virus, and then returns home to the village, where he infects his wife and possibly her next child. Such behaviour in remote villages is difficult to prevent. A further challenge to the fight against HIV / AIDS is accessibility to information. Whilst awareness is growing is urban areas, rural communities have little exposure to the knowledge they need to protect and help themselves. Illiteracy rates are high whilst communication technology such as the internet is largely unknown.

The increase rate of AIDS in rural Cambodia is alarming. While the overall number of HIV infections in Cambodia may have crested, the number of people developing full-blown AIDS in the countryside is just beginning to mushroom. An established 12,000 will have died of AIDS in Cambodia by 2005. By comparison, the entire country of Cambodia has fewer than 10,000 hospital beds. Thus, it is clear that some kind of home or community care is necessary to cope with the large numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in the country.

Home Care and Discrimination

The need for home care creates problems of its own. Many rural villagers are not only largely ignorant of how to care for their family members with HIV / AIDS, they fear this unknown killer, and are likely to abandon family members to die in the bush or by the side of the roads. Villagers need to be shown first that it is possible to care for their loved ones, without fear of contamination or stigmatisation by the community. Then they and the community must be shown how best to treat the illness in order to keep their loved ones alive and comfortable as long as possible.

 

Orphans

At the same time, children are being orphaned by the epidemic. 77,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS in Cambodia and will face severe economic and social hardship together with a shortage of desperately required medical care. They need, at the very minimum, advice and spiritual guidance, and more often than not, material assistance in the form of basic food, medicine, and school costs so that they are able to live full lives.

What this means

HIV / AIDS remains a major threat to Cambodia. By 2010-15, the average life expectancy in Cambodia is expected to drop by 7% due to AIDS. Whilst knowledge about HIV / AIDS and healthcare provisions remain limited as they are, HIV / AIDS is expected to have a major, detrimental effect not only on contraction rates and life expectancy but also on Cambodia's level of development.

Sources: UNICEF, National Centre for HIV / AIDS