HIV/AIDS in Mongolia: Minister Gundalai talks with Luke Distelhorst
Monday, 08 May 2006
Luke Distelhorst of mongolia.neweurasia.net sat down with L. Gundalai, the Mongolian Minister of Health to discuss HIV/AIDS in Mongolia. The complete interview can be found here:
Some quotes: The contents of this interview are the property of Luke
Distelhorst and mongolia.neweurasia.net, it may not be reproduced in
full without the written consent of the author.
Focus of the Ministry of Health (MOF)
LD: What is the current main focus of the MOH on HIV/AIDS? Finding
out how many cases actually exist, or education and prevention?
LG: Prevention and education is the easiest thing we can do.
Mongolia is not a rich country, and right now we don’t have much money.
We can’t treat all the people and most of the time we don’t have
sufficient equipment. Now we are planning to have a forum on TV that
will be only about health in Mongolia. We have talked with many TV
stations, and they want USD$1,000/week. So for a year it is almost
$60,000 and the MOH doesn’t have this kind of money. Even National TV
which is now public, asked us for Tg1.6 million per week, which is
USD$1,300. This is for a 50 minute program, only about health, once a
week. Even they don’t support us at all. The old forum show covered all
topics in Mongolia and is now done, but the new one that we want to
start will only cover health. There are a lot of topics that need to be
covered on health! Some of our future campaigns are going to cover
traffic accidents and household accidents that can be easily prevented.
In traffic, every five days, one child is killed by a car accident.
Every second day, one adult dies in a car accident. It is like a small
war in Mongolia. Also in Naadam so many small children get injured
falling off of their horses. Also in winter they still race their
horses and get frostbite and eye damage. More than 10,000 children get
injured in horse races every year. We must stop this, this is so
stupid, and we aren’t caring enough for our children.
Free condoms
LD: As you mentioned before many people cannot afford condoms. Many
places, such as schools, universities and clinics, in developed
countries have condoms available for free. In Mongolia the companies
that sell condoms keep the prices low, and only make enough money to
cover the import costs. Is the MOH working to make condoms widely
available for free for the impoverished citizens of Mongolia? In
surveys, Mongolian youths reported that they are having sex for the
first time at the ages of 16-17.
LG: [big sigh] ah, this is a problem. I have never seen free condoms
in Mongolia. The Global Fund distributes some free condoms to the
countryside and some groups of people, but in reality the shops or
kiosks resell these condoms. I have never heard of or seen free condoms
in Mongolia.
A site with information related to the environment and buddhism. There is a section on the Northern Buddhist Conference on Ecology and Development. www.buddhistecology.org/
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