It's a shame we have not heard much about the drama behind this drama. Who is the mysterious mother who left her newborn baby out on the street? Members of the community where Pui and his owner live are searching for any women who could be the baby's mother, according to reports. The authorities have also been searching for the suspect. Public condemnation also came in the form of Facebook postings like this one: "Even the dog loves its baby, what kind of mother would leave her baby on the street?"

That's a good question, but one no one has so far been able to answer. And who are the mothers of the thousands of babies who are abandoned or aborted in Thailand every year? Without the mother's story, this is just a story about a heroic dog. The dog did a great thing, of course, but I am interested in the other side of this story. That other side does not have a happy ending. One news source reported that the mother was rumoured to be a teenage girl working at a nearby factory. This is likely, and we should try to imagine the state of immense emotional despair that drives a 16- or 17-year-old girl to abandon her premature baby. Sadly, it is a story of failure - the failure of education, families and society at large to empower and equip a young woman with the means to protect herself. This abandoned newborn may illustrate an epidemic in Thailand, ad one that has largely stayed out of the public eye. It's called adolescent pregnancy. It affects at least 120,000 girls and young women each year, probably double that number when you add in the number of young women who resort to abortion.

Adolescent pregnancy affects affects parents and grandparents. It affects their prospects for better lives, and the prospects of their children. Five out of every hundred young women aged 15-19 are pregnant in Thailand at any given moment. If you add it all up, the number of lives touched and affected by this epidemic each year is probably more than half a million, or slightly less than 1 per cent of the population. That's more than all new cases of HIV/Aids, TB, malaria and hepatitis combined. An epidemic? You bet.

Why does it happen? Books have been written about the socio-cultural reasons, the nexus with poverty and the gender stereotypes that are determinants of adolescent pregnancy. All true. But in the end, adolescent pregnancy is caused by adolescent sex. And let me qualify that: by unsafe adolescent sex. So to address the issue, we need to address the issue of unsafe sex. And if that sounds familiar, that's because it is: Thailand waged a successful all-out campaign against HIV in the 1990s - another epidemic driven by unsafe sex.

What can we do about it? It's simple. Empower young women to make the right choices about their lives and their sexual lives. Help them get the self-esteem that will allow them to say no when they mean no. Help them protect themselves when they say yes. And when they do get pregnant, help them get on with their lives, without stigma and discrimination. Men and boys need to learn to respect their partners' choices, and in general respect women and assume responsibility for their own choices and behaviour in all matters sexual.

How much will it really cost to fix it? Addressing and seriously reducing the incidence of adolescent pregnancy needs capital, and heroes. But interestingly, it needs relatively little financial capital. What it does need is generous amounts of intellectual, political and social capital. And it needs heroes to make it happen. The good news is that Thailand has lots of that stuff.

It needs intellectual heroes because the old modes and ways of trying to reduce adolescent pregnancy haven't worked: this 5-per cent ratio has been staring us in the eye for the past eight years and has not come down. Clinics, sex education, lecturing and more - and the number has not budged. Teenage pregnancy continues to increase each year. Among Asean countries, Thailand ranks alongside Cambodia and Indonesia in teenage pregnancies, even though it has much higher income per capita and educational attainment. As of 2010, 10- to 19-year-old women accounted for 16 per cent of all pregnancies in Thailand, even though these girls are of school age. I wonder if anyone has bothered asking young people themselves how they see this problem, and how they see the solutions.

It also needs social heroes. Human beings listen to other human beings; that's how we are wired. And young people are no different. So if we want to bring about behavioural change, we need enormous amounts of social capital - we need to figure out who young people listen to. We like to think that it's parents and teachers - and yes, these are very important, but let's not fool ourselves: it's really peers and celebrities. And indirectly, it's the social and other media, the advertisers, stores and clubs where young people go to work, shop and play - these wield enormous social capital, with the potential to influence the choices young people make when it comes to whether or not they will have sex, and whether or not that sex will be safe.

Finally, it needs political heroes, because nothing beats a champion. In every sense. Strong and consistent leadership from people with real power in Thai society is essential if adolescent pregnancy is to become less of an epidemic. This includes politicians - whether in power or not - as well as captains of industry, thought leaders and those who are role models. In the UK, Tony Blair made a commitment to reducing adolescent pregnancy during his tenure as prime minister, and the country brought down the percentage from 5 to 3 during that time. Over ten years that meant roughly 2 million people whose lives are now not adversely affected by the consequences of adolescent pregnancy. Worth it? I would think so.

This is an epidemic that has no reason to be - Thailand can conquer this terrible waste of human potential, and lessen suffering, by doing a few very simple things: empower young people, especially young women, to delay having sex until they are ready. And if they do have sex, enable them to negotiate it to be safe. And if that also fails, make sure that they do not need to suffer throughout their lives for the consequences of making one mistake when they were young.

So let's not stop at giving a medal to Pui, this heroic dog. Instead, let's make sure that Thailand does not need more such stories in the future, by addressing the causes of unwanted pregnancies. It will need many heroes to make that happen.

Caspar Peek is representative for Thailand and country director for Malaysia, the United Nations Population Fund.

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