Na-anya Chantrakat, registered nurse level 8,
explains the goal of the campaign.
Surasak Huasoon
AIDS-prevention groups will try again to get the city’s many sex workers to
agree to voluntary HIV testing and counseling at a July 1 event on Soi 6.
Dubbed “VCT Day,” for “voluntary counseling and testing,” the outreach effort is
co-sponsored by 10 organizations and city departments who attended a June 11
“Health and AIDS Workers Network” meeting.
Na-anya Chantrakat, director for the Center for Disease Prevention and Control
in the Pattaya Public Health Department, said the city attempted a VCT Day
before, but received poor cooperation from Pattaya businesses.
Soi 6 was selected as the location for the outreach, she said, because it is
home to 43 straight and gay bars employing hundreds of workers interacting with
foreign tourists.
She said that, before the event, the department will dispatch staff to the
various businesses to educate them on the mission of the project.
Na-anya said testing and counseling for HIV and AIDS is necessary because of the
thousands of sex workers living in Pattaya and the millions of tourists that
visit the city each year.
