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Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla repeated his message that laws on social issues and gender equality were now primary solutions for Aids problems, as per an agreement reached at a recent Geneva meeting of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids.

As a result of the Geneva meeting, the gender issue would later be formulated into laws in a number of countries including Thailand, which would give legal protection to women whose sex partners refused to use condoms during sex. Mongkol expressed concern over high suicide rates of up to 30 per cent reported in developed Asian countries among Aids patients stressed out by public disgust. No such surveys have been taken here.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva floated Aids awareness as a citizens' agenda for his party's political campaign ahead of the election expected late this year. He expressed suspicion over the official number of Aids patients reported in Thailand, saying it might be much lower than the actual population of patients. - The Nation