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AIDS Laos

Gay & Lesbian Community! Laos Opens Up to World and AIDS Threat Landlocked, communist Laos has its isolation to thank for keeping the global AIDS epidemic at bay while its Southeast Asian neighbors struggle with some of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. But the United Nations fears attempts by the country to adopt a market economy and open up to the outside world could spark a surge in transmissions of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "Laos has been the quiet achiever at keeping the spread of HIV at bay, but this could all change," Tony Lisle, a top UNAIDS official in Southeast Asia, told Reuters in an interview. "The country is facing the same issues that its neighbors have faced in the past, and the threat of HIV/AIDS is as big as ever. As the pace of development increases, so does the AIDS risk." A UN-World Health Organization report at the end of 2001 said Laos had an HIV infection rate of 0.04 percent of adults between the ages of 15 and 49 -- a fraction of the equivalent rate of 2.7 percent in Cambodia and 1.8 percent in Thailand. Laos has around 5.4 million people. The UN said Laos has hardly any migrant workers, few intravenous drug users and the government had successfully educated its people about the disease when infections began to rise in the mid-1990s. Laos is one of the world's last remaining communist countries, and since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 the secretive state's economy has struggled. The nation's currency, the kip, lost 90 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. In a bid to boost its fragile economy, Laos has promoted tourism and improved trade ties with its neighbors. ROAD TO SEX New roads are planned to link Laos with Thailand, Vietnam and China. A domestic north-south route is also proposed. But the social implications of this could be high. The UN fears improved roads could bring disease along with foreign income. "More truck drivers and construction workers will come ac

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