Last year 30 Danish men came back home from Thailand with gonorrhoea, a sexually transmissible illness, which is nearly extinct in Denmark, writes the Danish newspaper Politiken.
“It is a shocking figure given that only some of the cases are registered. There are doctors who do not get the cases notified to us, and then there are all the men who would not disclose where they got the disease”, said Susan Cowan, Consultant at Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.
Thailand is often a source of diseases. It is especially within the homosexual environments and sex tourism, which perpetuates the otherwise nearly wiped out illness. And often the source is in Thailand.
“Thailand is the only country in the world, where a two- digit Danish men come home with gonorrhoea”, said Susan Cowan, who also has served on a fly route to Thailand and heard Danish men boast about what they had to do in Thailand.
Even when it comes to HIV Thailand is the country where most Western men pick up the fatal disease.
Sine Plambech an anthropologist is hired by the UN to study prostitution in Thailand.
“HIV is increasing in Thailand. The Thai prostitutes are well aware that they must protect themselves, but often Western men are able to pay to get around the girl’s demand of the use of condom protect themselves. Especially when it comes to Thai women from poor areas”, said Sine Plambech.
She describes the Western customers as both young and older men. And many soldiers on holiday together.
