Miracle Man of Thailand : Profile: After his campaign for condom use dramatically lowered Thailand’s birth rate, Mechai Viravaidya is going after the growing problem of AIDS.

With his wacky sense of humor and flair for publicity, Mechai Viravaidya is regarded as something of a miracle worker for helping to rein in Thailand’s booming population growth in a single generation. Now he’s hoping to work a second miracle as he directs a nationwide campaign against AIDS.

“AIDS is a problem which will inevitably enlarge in Thailand because of drug use and prostitution,”

Mechai said in a recent interview. “But three years ago, nobody was doing anything about it. The government was silent on the question.”

Mechai should know, because three years ago he was spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda.

Mechai notes, regretfully, that he was not setting official policy but merely articulating it to the public. Now back in private life, Mechai has become his country’s most outspoken advocate of public honesty about AIDS, a stand that has made him far from popular in official quarters.

“I think other countries will regret they didn’t attack the issue sooner,” he said.

At present, Thailand has 30 full-fledged cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, with another 12,000 people having tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the precursor of AIDS. While the numbers are still relatively small compared to the United States, Mechai said the potential for disaster is great if no action is taken.

Mechai said that while most of the early AIDS cases appeared to involve frequent drug users, “the main competition is now coming from heterosexual contacts.”

In Thailand, more often than not, that means the country’s enormous, highly profitable sex industry, said to employ upward of 300,000 prostitutes and involving such delicate issues as foreign tourism and economic prosperity.

“Because of prostitution, Thailand, like a lot of other countries, is very fertile ground for AIDS,” Mechai said. “A lot of people would like us just to shut up about it.”

A scion of Thailand’s landed gentry, Mechai, who was educated in Australia, turned a youthful interest in rural development into a concern about population. In 1974, he founded Thailand’s privately funded Population and Community Development Assn. (PDA), then primarily a family planning group.

Mechai used showman skills and a keen administrative flair to bring home the message to Thailand’s rural poor that a large family is no longer the sign of prowess it once was, a sensitive issue here.

Like a campaigning politician, Mechai made hundreds of public appearances, passing out literature and condoms at lunches, weddings and even funerals.

He was so successful at getting publicity with his outrageous stunts, such as handing out condoms in key rings, that his face became instantly recognizable and Mechai entered the Thai language as slang for a condom.

He opened a restaurant, called “Cabbages and Condoms,” which is next door to the PDA headquarters and offers family planning advice--the “vasectomy bar”--along with excellent Thai food

The clowning paid off handsomely.

From 1970, when the Thai birth rate was reckoned at 3.2% annually, one of the highest in the world, it dropped to 1.6% in 1986, one of the most dramatic declines in birth rates ever recorded.

“Our job is no longer family planning as a prime responsibility,” Mechai said. “Surveys show that 95% of Thais don’t want more than two children and 70% practice contraception.”

His success in population control resulted in a cascade of honorary doctorates and awards, including a U. N. Gold Peace Medal.

After his stint as government spokesman, Mechai spent a year in the United States as a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Institute for International Development.

When he returned to Thailand, Mechai realized the official silence about AIDS was continuing, so he decided to concentrate on a public information campaign to halt the spread of the disease.

To finance the campaign, he had to sell a plot of family land because the PDA could raise no money from the government or from international organizations on the AIDS question.

Mechai said he has been forced to tread softly when dealing with the country’s organized sex industry because he wants its operators to cooperate.

“Let’s face it: Thai men have a huge appetite for sex, and most are satisfying their appetites outside the home, in what I call business places,” Mechai said. “Brothel operators are concerned about their incomes. If what we’re doing brings down their incomes, they don’t like it.”

Although technically illegal, prostitution is conducted openly in Thailand, a legacy of the Vietnam War when American GIs took R&R; from the battlefield in Thailand. Advertised in daily newspapers are the special bars that cater to every taste and nationality.

In fact, because of worldwide publicity about AIDS, Thailand’s nightclub scene is in decline. Mechai said income is down an estimated 60% to 70% in the last year alone in some nightclubs and massage parlors.

Mechai scored an early success by winning a convert to his cause--army commander-in-chief Gen. Chavlit Yongchaiyut. After testing, 240 soldiers were found to be HIV positive; Chavlit then ordered the army’s 126 radio stations and two television stations to air Mechai’s educational material about AIDS.

Although Mechai has made well-publicized tours of Bangkok’s notorious red-light districts, handing out condoms and information cards to prostitutes, he says his prime concern involved getting the word out to rural areas, where recruitment of prostitutes takes place.

Already, he said, PDA’s village officials have noted a decline in the number of young women entering prostitution because of fears about AIDS.

He is constantly coming up with schemes to disseminate his message. The latest has Avon ladies handing out calling cards with AIDS prevention information on the reverse side. His inventory includes graphic wall calendars with photos of AIDS victims, which he argues carry more weight than mere propaganda, especially in rural areas.

“In family planning, we were constantly using humor,” he said. “But you can’t use humor with AIDS. After all, there is nothing funny about people dying.”

Mechai also is returning to his first interest, rural development, with a program aimed at overcoming poverty by persuading major corporations to “adopt” small communities. Although Thailand has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Mechai said many rural people are left behind, “like a dog watching an airplane fly overhead.”