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AIDS is Asia's 'silent tsunami,' experts say
KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - AIDS is a silent tsunami that threatens all of Asia, but the deadly disease can still be conquered if governments take urgent action now, world health officials said on Saturday.
One in four new infections occurs in Asia and 1,500 die in the region each day. The disease has spread to all provinces in China, the world's most populous nation, while India has the second-highest number of AIDS/ HIV patients after South Africa.
But political will to battle the illness is lacking in most of the region's governments despite the huge potential toll in lives and missed development goals as millions of households are pushed into poverty, officials said at an international AIDS conference in the western Japanese city of Kobe.
Failure to fight AIDS will have a critical economic impact on the region. The United Nations estimates losses could total $29 billion from AIDS alone by 2010 if nothing is done now.
Governments need to view AIDS as a threat on the scale of a natural disaster such as the tsunami last December that killed or left missing 232,000 people, said J.V.R. Prasada Rao, Director of the Regional Support Team for UNAIDS, the U.N. agency dedicated to fighting the disease.
"The only real barrier to scaling up the response to HIV is one of perception," he told a conference session.
"The virus doesn't kill hundreds of thousands at a thunderous stroke like the tsunami, and it doesn't provide vivid television pictures," he added. "It is more like a silent tsunami."
The U.N. estimates 8.2 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Asia, about 5.1 million of them in India. The Chinese government says there are 840,000 patients in China.
Worldwide, about 39 million people have HIV/AIDS, including 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
If no steps are taken, 12 million people are likely to be infected with HIV in Asia by 2010, UNAIDS warns.
MAJOR POLITICAL WILL
This figure could be cut by half with hard work over the next two or three years, but this would require major political will, UNAIDS director Peter Piot said on Friday.
In Asia, the AIDS epidemic is still mainly found among vulnerable groups such as homosexuals, injecting drug users and sex workers, but health officials say it could spread to the general population.
Rao said many politicians did not like to talk about injecting drug users, sex workers or men having sex with men -- a reflection of the heavy stigma and discrimination faced by HIV/AIDS sufferers across the region, which prevents many from being tested or even treated.
"Stigma and discrimination is an epidemic that is really killing people," said Manoj Pardeshi, an HIV-positive man who represents several HIV activist groups.
"We just want to live a normal life, and we just want our basic human rights," he told a news conference, exhorting governments to enact laws against discrimination.
Targeted prevention programs are reaching only 19 percent of sex workers and 5 percent of injecting drug users in Asia. The figure for homosexual men is no higher than 2 percent.
There are success stories in Asia, such as Thailand, where annual new HIV infections fell from nearly 143,000 in 1991 to 21,260 at the end of 2003, thanks to mass education and condom programs aimed at sex workers and other high-risk groups.
In contrast, affluent, well-educated Japan still has a relatively low number of infections, but experts say general apathy could lead to an explosion of cases over the next decade.
"Obviously, the problem is one not of resources or know-how," Rao said. "Japan is economically one of the most advanced countries in the world. The only explanation, surely, is low prioritization."
Asia is more than capable of conquering the disease, Rao said, citing its response to emergencies such as SARS and the tsunami.
"When we need to, we can mobilize rapidly, assemble the resources and become extremely creative in figuring out solutions to all manner of problems," he added.
"We need an emergency-like response to this epidemic." (HEALTH-AIDS, reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by David Fogarty; Reuters Messaging: elaine.lies@reuters.com@reuters.net; +81-3 3432 8485))
KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - AIDS is a silent tsunami that threatens all of Asia, but the deadly disease can still be conquered if governments take urgent action now, world health officials said on Saturday.
One in four new infections occurs in Asia and 1,500 die in the region each day. The disease has spread to all provinces in China, the world's most populous nation, while India has the second-highest number of AIDS/ HIV patients after South Africa.
But political will to battle the illness is lacking in most of the region's governments despite the huge potential toll in lives and missed development goals as millions of households are pushed into poverty, officials said at an international AIDS conference in the western Japanese city of Kobe.
Failure to fight AIDS will have a critical economic impact on the region. The United Nations estimates losses could total $29 billion from AIDS alone by 2010 if nothing is done now.
Governments need to view AIDS as a threat on the scale of a natural disaster such as the tsunami last December that killed or left missing 232,000 people, said J.V.R. Prasada Rao, Director of the Regional Support Team for UNAIDS, the U.N. agency dedicated to fighting the disease.
"The only real barrier to scaling up the response to HIV is one of perception," he told a conference session.
"The virus doesn't kill hundreds of thousands at a thunderous stroke like the tsunami, and it doesn't provide vivid television pictures," he added. "It is more like a silent tsunami."
The U.N. estimates 8.2 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Asia, about 5.1 million of them in India. The Chinese government says there are 840,000 patients in China.
Worldwide, about 39 million people have HIV/AIDS, including 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
If no steps are taken, 12 million people are likely to be infected with HIV in Asia by 2010, UNAIDS warns.
MAJOR POLITICAL WILL
This figure could be cut by half with hard work over the next two or three years, but this would require major political will, UNAIDS director Peter Piot said on Friday.
In Asia, the AIDS epidemic is still mainly found among vulnerable groups such as homosexuals, injecting drug users and sex workers, but health officials say it could spread to the general population.
Rao said many politicians did not like to talk about injecting drug users, sex workers or men having sex with men -- a reflection of the heavy stigma and discrimination faced by HIV/AIDS sufferers across the region, which prevents many from being tested or even treated.
"Stigma and discrimination is an epidemic that is really killing people," said Manoj Pardeshi, an HIV-positive man who represents several HIV activist groups.
"We just want to live a normal life, and we just want our basic human rights," he told a news conference, exhorting governments to enact laws against discrimination.
Targeted prevention programs are reaching only 19 percent of sex workers and 5 percent of injecting drug users in Asia. The figure for homosexual men is no higher than 2 percent.
There are success stories in Asia, such as Thailand, where annual new HIV infections fell from nearly 143,000 in 1991 to 21,260 at the end of 2003, thanks to mass education and condom programs aimed at sex workers and other high-risk groups.
In contrast, affluent, well-educated Japan still has a relatively low number of infections, but experts say general apathy could lead to an explosion of cases over the next decade.
"Obviously, the problem is one not of resources or know-how," Rao said. "Japan is economically one of the most advanced countries in the world. The only explanation, surely, is low prioritization."
Asia is more than capable of conquering the disease, Rao said, citing its response to emergencies such as SARS and the tsunami.
"When we need to, we can mobilize rapidly, assemble the resources and become extremely creative in figuring out solutions to all manner of problems," he added.
"We need an emergency-like response to this epidemic." (HEALTH-AIDS, reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by David Fogarty; Reuters Messaging: elaine.lies@reuters.com@reuters.net; +81-3 3432 8485))