What about Asia?
"What about Asia? People tell us they don't have grants for Asia,
everything is for African countries. There are several million positive
people in India, in Thailand 800,000, and Cambodia is increasing every
day. Every day more and more people die in Asia, yet we are forgotten..."
At the Barcelona Conference during an opening drug company reception for
community organisations, one voice stood out. The man who spoke so impressively
was Bunthy Sok, Director of the Cambodia Organisation of Persons with
HIV/Aids (COPHA).
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Bunthy was attending the World Aids conference to highlight
the plight of people living with HIV in Cambodia - not to mention raising
funds to keep COPHA in existence at all.
Shame and rejection
Bunthy comes from an affluent family in Cambodia and had been working
as a translator for the US Military attaché when he discovered
he was HIV positive in 1997.
He kept his diagnosis to himself for five months until he went to the
Cambodian Red Cross. The counselling he received there gave him the courage
to disclose his status to some of his friends. But
this proved to be problematic.
"I told my friends but they just blamed me. Nobody supported me at
all. I also lost my job. I felt that the people I worked with didn't like
me and didn't understand my situation, so I resigned."
The situation worsened. One of Bunthy's friends was also diagnosed with
HIV, and committed suicide. Bunthy's own health
started to deteriorate.
"I worked for a Cambodian newsletter for six months, but
