HIV infections on
the rise in Asia

The number of people in Asia infected with the AIDS virus threatens to double over the next five years unless governments do more to stop the spread of HIV, officials said Friday.

"About 8.6 million people are infected in Asia with HIV. At the current level of inadequate response, it is expected this number will rise to about 20 million in the next five years,'' the independent Commission on AIDS in Asia said.

The nine-member commission, funded by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, is holding its two-day Southeast Asia subregional workshop in Manila, the Philippines. It said the number of deaths currently average around 500,000 yearly, and financial losses to the Asian region are estimated at $10 billion annually. The economic cost is predicted to rise to as high as $29 billion per year if the epidemic is not controlled within the next five years.

Despite these projections, investments in HIV control in the region remain extremely low at 10% of the required $5 billion per year, it added. UNAIDS data show the number of infected people receiving antiretroviral therapy has increased more than threefold since 2003, but they represent only 16% of those needing the treatment. Only Thailand is providing treatment to at least 50% of those in need, UNAIDS said.

Chakravarthy Rangarajan, chairman of India's economic advisory council and head of the commission, said that while the prevalence of HIV is low in Southeast Asia, the number of infections is high because the region is populous. He also said there is a need to mobilize domestic funds to control HIV and AIDS in the region because more than 80% of funding currently comes from foreign aid organizations.

The commission said the reasons for the inadequate response in the region are manifold, ranging from low levels of awareness and understanding among policy makers to a difficulty in predicting the dynamics of the disease's progression.

Sex remains taboo in the region, with very little encouragement for sex and family education for young people. Multipartner sex and injection-drug use, which mainly drive the epidemic, are criminal acts, resulting in infected populations remaining highly stigmatized and deprived of even limited health care services, it added. (AP)