In the hills of Thailand, 23 Buddhist monks are working around
the clock to treat patients who are dying of AIDS. Twenty of these
monks have contracted AIDS themselves in the process ““ but
there isn’t anyone else but them to care for the sick.
Because of the great fear of contracting AIDS, and the stigma
associated with the disease in Thailand, most of the patients are
left to die on their own. There is one doctor on staff, so newly
infected patients help those who are more sick.
“I’d rather suffer than see my parents lose
face,” said Lek, a young woman living at the AIDS hospice.
Lek contracted the disease while working as a sex worker to raise
money for her son. Watching a caretaker sweep out bones from the
crematorium, where an average of two bodies are cremated each day,
she said she plans on dying alone.
She is one of 200 patients at the hospice and one of 670,000
people suffering from AIDS in Thailand.
Lek’s story, along with the stories of four other people
suffering from AIDS around the world, are being featured in an HBO
documentary, “Pandemic: Facing AIDS.”
The documentary ““ which chronicles people with AIDS in
Thailand, Uganda, Russia, Brazil and India ““ aims to combine
personal stories with a global perspective on AIDS, said Director
Rory Kennedy.
“The global AIDS crisis could be overcome if enough people
and resources were devoted to the task,” Kennedy announced to
an auditorium filled with several hundred people Thursday. The
event was a screening for the documentary at the Directors Guild of
America on Sunset Boulevard. The event attracted a diverse
audience, which included doctors, researchers, AIDS activists and
the media.
In his State of the Union Address, President Bush promised a
five-year, $15 billion AIDS program to treat AIDS, which Kennedy
says is encouraging. But she emphasized the need to focus on
curbing widespread infection during the next 18 months.
Kennedy had a glimpse of the pandemic two years before making
her documentary, when she joined a White House AIDS delegation to
make a short film about people suffering from AIDS in sub-Saharan
Africa.
In many parts of Africa, entire communities and villages have
been decimated. With nearly every death, another child is orphaned.
In Uganda, nearly two million children have been orphaned by AIDS
so far.
In Uganda, where treatments and preventative measures are
usually more scarce than food, it is difficult to control the
problem.
For example, though testing for HIV costs $1.50 in Uganda, most
people still cannot afford it.
In one section of the documentary, Kennedy took several couples
in Uganda to get tested for AIDS ““ one couple came out
positive.
“We have to make sure we don’t have more kids
now,” said the infected woman as she nursed her newborn
child.
Though she easily passes the virus to her child through her
breast milk, she doesn’t have a choice. Formula is too
expensive, and she doesn’t want her baby to starve.
Doctors want to reshift their focus to prevent mother-to-child
transmission through nervirapine, a $2 treatment given to a mother
during labor and a child after birth to prevent infection, said
Jeff Safrit, senior program officer at the Elizabeth Glaser
Pediatrics AIDS Foundation.
Researchers and doctors are also working on getting universal
access to rapid testing for HIV and AIDS, something that
wasn’t possible when the film was made.
“Only one in 20 people with HIV know their status,”
said Mary Rotheram, the associate director of policy for the UCLA
AIDS Institute.
Something as simple as knowing your status can make infection
rates go down, Rotheram said, citing the lowered infection rates in
Thailand and Uganda as examples. In these two countries, infection
rates decreased when people became more knowledgeable about
preventative measures and treatments.
“By focusing on expensive treatments, we miss
possibilities of other solutions,” Rotheram said.
The five-part documentary debuts June 15 at 7 p.m. EST on HBO.
It will continue with half-hour segments on subsequent Sundays at
noon.