PHNOM PENH, Dec 1 (NNN-AKP) – HIV/AIDS killed more than 1,300 people in Cambodia in 2018, down 48 percent from over 2,500 deaths in 2010, Ieng Mouly, chairman of the National AIDS Authority, said today.
Speaking at an event marking World AIDS Day, Mouly said, some 880 people became newly infected with HIV last year, down 62 percent from 2,300 nine years ago.
“We have seen continued success in combating HIV/AIDS in the last decade, and we are seeking about 20 million U.S. dollars a year from 2020, in order to achieve our target of ending HIV/AIDS in Cambodia by 2025,” he said.
Currently, Cambodia has an estimated 73,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, and about 81 percent of them received anti-retroviral drugs, according to the National AIDS Authority.
Pauline Tamesis, resident coordinator of the United Nations in Cambodia, said, despite these immense achievements, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is not yet over.
In 2018, 25 percent of new HIV infections were among men who have sex with men, more than three-fold increase from seven percent in 2010, she said.
Thuon Sarim, who infected the virus from her husband in 2000, said, discrimination against people living with HIV had now declined remarkably, if compared to that of two decades ago.
“About 20 years ago, in some cases, when an HIV carrier sat on his neighbour’s bed, and soon after he left the bed, the neighbour would burn the bed,” she said. “In another case, when an HIV patient drank water at his relative’s home, soon after the patient left, the relative threw away the mug the patient had used.”
“People feared the virus spread to them. They did not understand about the ways HIV spread at that time,” said Sarim, who lives in Southern Takeo province.
Now, she said people in her community are better aware of the ways HIV spread, and they no longer discriminated against her and other patients.
According to a recent survey, conducted by the National AIDS Authority, job discrimination against people living with HIV had dropped from 46 percent in 2010, to two percent last year, while verbal harassment against them had declined from 14 percent to three percent during the same period.
