Thailand’s Positive Partnership program, one of that nation’s many innovative public health efforts, provides business loans to HIV-positive Thais who find an HIV-negative business partner, Mechai Viravaidya tells Glenn Melnick in an interview published Sept. 25 on the Health Affairs web site.
“The person who is not infected has the responsibility of changing attitudes and behavior in their community toward people living with HIV and AIDS,” says Viravaidya, a former Thai senator and government minister who for over three decades has been a leader in campaigns against excessive population growth, HIV/AIDS, and other public health threats.
In his discussion with Melnick, Viravaidya emphasizes the importance of complementing public health efforts with poverty reduction strategies through initiatives like the Positive Partnership program. Organizations that provide health care in the developing world “are all trying to solve health problems that are the consequence of poverty, but they don’t address the root cause of poverty. Hence, they will never be sustainable,” says Viravaidya. Only the business sector can provide the business skills and credit sources that the poor need to move up the socioeconomic ladder, he said. Read the abstract.
