- MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The
spread of AIDS in Asia risks rising exponentially unless renewed prevention
efforts are undertaken in the next few years, health experts say.
At the opening of the five-day International Congress on AIDS in Asia and
the Pacific, around 3,000 delegates were told that a substantial proportion
of the male population was at risk, mainly from sex with prostitutes, and
that existing prevention programs still have not reached huge numbers of
people in the region.
A lack of awareness of AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and the
fear of disclosure meant many infected people only sought medical attention
when other opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis had set in.
"The course of the epidemic in Asia in the next decade is largely
going to be determined by the prevention that is undertaken in the next
few years," said Tim Brown, of the UNAIDS centre of the East/West
Center in Hawaii.
"There is serious potential for further and extensive spread of HIV,"
he told the gathering in the southern Australian city.
Some health experts have said the potential maximum infection rates are
around 2-3 percent of Asian populations, well below the rates of around
10 percent seen in sub-Saharan Africa.
But Brown said this could rise much higher given that men who visited sex
workers were the largest group at risk, and studies have shown 5-20 percent
of men across Asia go to prostitutes.
"This is a very substantial proportion of the male population we are
dealing with, and should they become infected their wives and girlfriends
are potentially exposed to HIV," Brown said.
Around seven million people in Asia live with HIV/AIDS, while an estimated
500,000 people die of the disease each year. This is estimated to rise
to 800,000 by 2005, according to figures from UNAIDS, the coordinating
UN body.
INCREASING RISKS
Across countries, the highest rates of infection were in Cambodia at 2.7
percent of the general population, Myanmar at 2.0 percent and Thailand
at 1.8 percent. These three countries also have the highest rates of heterosexual
transmission.
Surveys have found 15 percent of married men and 21 percent of unmarried
men in Cambodia had sex with prostitutes in 2000, compared with a total
of 11 percent in Japan and 10 percent in Thailand.
Still, the spread of AIDS across Asia has been relatively contained to
high-risk groups including sex workers, intravenous drug users, and homosexuals.
In Myanmar, 62 percent of injecting drug users and 38 percent of female
sex workers were HIV positive according to a study taken last year.In three
provinces in Vietnam, infection among intravenous drug users ranged from
30 to 60 percent.
"There is an enormous lack of awareness out there," said the
University of Malaya's Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, saying late diagnosis of
HIV was one of the greatest problems.
"The fear of disclosure is very real, the social stigma that continues
in these countries, contributes to the late presentation of patients,"
she told Reuters.
At a time when sophisticated and expensive anti-retroviral medication is
widely used in OECD nations to treat people with HIV, the drugs remain
a luxury in developing Asian countries.
Meeting the cost of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the developing world will
be the most challenging imperative of this century, said Professor Stefano
Vella, president of the International AIDS Society.
He estimated the cost, including the increasing availability of generic
drugs, at around US$7-9 billion a year.
"This cost should be met by wealthy countries," Vella said.
"It is still a relatively young epidemic in Asia/Pacific, which could
rise exponentially if appropriate interventions aren't put in place."
-
-
- Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
|
