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AIDS Summit Spotlights Thailand's Struggle

By Richard Knox
Published July 12, 2004 at 12:00 AM EDT
La, a 30-year-old Burmese woman living in the north of Thailand, is counseled by a nurse at Chiangsen Hospital on how to take anti-AIDS drugs. La became infected witih HIV as a teenager while working in the commercial sex industry in Bangkok.
Jane Greenhalgh, NPR
La, a 30-year-old Burmese woman living in the north of Thailand, is counseled by a nurse at Chiangsen Hospital on how to take anti-AIDS drugs. La became infected witih HIV as a teenager while working in the commercial sex industry in Bangkok.
La, a 30-year-old Burmese woman living in the north of Thailand. She became infected with HIV while working in the commercial sex industry.
Jane Greenhalgh, NPR /
La, a 30-year-old Burmese woman living in the north of Thailand. She became infected with HIV while working in the commercial sex industry.

More people in northern Thailand's remote border region with Laos are HIV-infected than anywhere else in the country. NPR's Richard Knox travels to the region to chronicle a momentous day in the life of a young woman, La, as she starts AIDS drug treatment. She begins her treatment in the nick of time, and also begins a new job she hopes will help her avoid going back into commercial sex work. As La's story shows, it takes more than miracle drugs to treat AIDS successfully.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Richard Knox
Since he joined NPR in 2000, Knox has covered a broad range of issues and events in public health, medicine, and science. His reports can be heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Talk of the Nation, and newscasts.
See stories by Richard Knox
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