Thailand was a model for how a country should respond to the HIV epidemic. Whenever there was an HIV innovation -- whether it be a drug or a behavioural approach -- Thailand would be one of the first countries to adopt it. This began with the 100% Condom Programme in the early 1990s and continued all the way to 2016, when WHO declared that Thailand was the first country in Asia to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of both HIV and syphilis, an impressive feat many countries are still hard-pressed to mimic. Thailand became one of the first middle-income countries in 2014 to embrace pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) by supporting community-based organisations (CBOs) to test key populations, such as men who have sex with men and transgendered individuals, for HIV and provide this critical drug to them.
It was a simple yet successful formula: let community organisations who are led and staffed by LGBTQ individuals serve their own communities and they will deliver. And they did -- by the end of 2022, these passionate and dedicated organisations were responsible for over 70% of the PrEP doses delivered in the country, not to mention a huge amount of HIV testing which allowed people to know if they were HIV+ and to get on life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.
