Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla will become the new chairman of the board of UNAids next month.

He plans to put condoms on the top of the agenda when his one-year term at the international agency begins.

"I plan to promote the use of condoms in countries where the rate of safe sex remains low," Mongkol said yesterday.

He confirmed that he had already accepted an invitation to become the chairman of the UNAids board, extended by UNAids executive director Dr Peter Piot.

Piot was among the first global health officials to throw his support behind Thailand's decision to issue compulsory licences for patented HIV/Aids medicines when it began doing so late last year. The move drew a fierce response from Western pharmaceutical firms as well as a rebuke from US trade officials, but it also won praise from health advocates around the globe.

The post of chairman of the UNAids board lasts one year and typically rotates between representatives from developed and developing countries.

"It's a great honour that the post comes to Thailand," said Mongkol, a former rural doctor.

He is scheduled to chair a meeting of the board on June 25. The board has 37 members: 22 representing member countries, 10 representing UN agencies, and five representing civil society.

UNAids combines the efforts and resources of 10 UN organisations into one global response to the epidemic. It has a budget of about US$200 million (Bt6.58 billion) a year.

The chairman of UNAids' board has the ability to shape the global response to Aids, Mongkol said.

About 95 per cent of the more than 40 million people living with HIV/Aids globally are in developing countries. Most people who become infected with HIV do so through unsafe sex.

Meanwhile Mongkol said he and Brazilian counterpart Joze Gomez Temperao would ink an agreement on public health cooperation in mid-August in Brazil. "In addition to cooperation on health development and generic-drug manufacturing, we also plan to jointly manufacture influenza vaccine," Mongkol said. Both Thailand and Brazil have enforced compulsory licensing on Efavirenz, which is used to treat Aids patients.

Mongkol said Brazil had received the know-how to produce the influenza vaccine from Sanofi Aventis, while Thailand would acquire it from China.

Mongkol is now attending the 60th World Health Assembly in Switzerland.