Anyone reading the Boards over the last few years knows only too well that the rate of HIV infection amongst msm in Thailand is very high. According to ThailandтАЩs Ministry of Public Health and the USCDC, this rose dramatically from around 17% in 2003 to 29% in 2011 - http://www.irinnews.org/report/98439/th ... -hiv-rates. According to another 2013 UNAIDS Asia Pacific Report, throughout the region generally the rate ranges from 15% to 25%. One of the most worrying trends in Bangkok, it seems, is the number of saunas that have sprung up in recent years catering mostly to young Thais for Thais where condom use is the exception rather than the norm. This is a sad result of successive governments substantially reducing the countryтАЩs HIV education educational programmes which were so effective in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Today, though, GayAsiaNews reports on the first trials of a new Chiang Mai-based research programme into tests of an anti-HIV rectal gel which, if successful, might be a new tool in the fight against HIV.
http://gayasianews.com/2014/06/17/thail ... er-people/Research Institute for Health Sciences in Chiang Mai University which has been a research site for over 35 major International studies in the past years is one of the sites for the study. Similar study sites will commence soon in South Africa, Peru and the US.
The objective of this study is to ascertain the safety of a rectal microbicide gel. Depending upon the outcome of this study, more studies will be conducted later.
The study in Chiang Mai will have 24 study participants. Thirteen study participants have been recruited by June 2014 and 11 more study participants will be recruited by October 2104. The study is expected to finish by the end of first quarter of 2015.
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