AIDS epidemic seen threatening `Asian promise'

AIDS epidemic seen threatening `Asian promise'

MANILA (Reuter): The AIDS epidemic is threatening growth and
progress in booming Asia, where 30 percent of world HIV cases are
projected to be found by 2000, speakers at an Asian Development
Bank-sponsored meeting said yesterday.

They said a large commercial sex industry and intravenous drug
use were hastening the spread of the disease in the region, known
as the world's engine of growth.

Although the severity of the threat of AIDS varies from
country to country, the disease is bound to have serious economic
and social costs, they said.

"The HIV epidemic is the enemy of 'Asian promise'," ADB Vice-
President Peter Sullivan said at the start of a meeting of the
ADB and the UN Development Program (UNDP) on the economic
implications of HIV/AIDS.

"It threatens much of the progress that has been made over the
past two decades and endangers economic growth in countries that
have introduced growth-enhancing, economy-wide reforms only
recently," he said.

In Asia, the first cases of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome were reported only in the mid-1980s but by 1991 over one
million cases of infection with the AIDS-causing human immuno-
deficiency virus were estimated to have already occurred, ADB
economist Myo Thant said in a paper.

He said that, while there was wide disparity between estimates
and actual numbers, a clear trend showed the epidemic was moving
steadily towards developing countries, particularly those in
Asia.

Thant said two million of the total 14 million HIV cases in
the world were from South and Southeast Asia, adding that the
situation was likely to become even more severe in the future.

Sex industry

He cited World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 10
million, or 30 percent, of the 30 million to 40 million HIV cases
worldwide by year 2000 might be from Asia alone.

India and Thailand, Thant said, had fewer than 1,000 HIV cases
in 1987. By 1993, the infections were estimated to have grown to
at least one million cases in India and half a million in
Thailand.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic will force a re-thinking of the role of
tourism in economic development, Thant said.

He said while not all tourism was sex-oriented, Asia would
need to re-examine attitudes towards implicitly using the sex
industry as a tourist attraction.

This particularly applies to countries that are just beginning
to rely on tourism as a quick solution to earning foreign
exchange.

Bhaichand Patel, UNDP officer-in-charge in the Philippines,
said HIV/AIDS, more than a public-health problem, was a major
factor in a country's socio-economic agenda.

Citing a World Bank report, he said many of those who fell ill
and eventually died of AIDS in developing countries were from the
economically active and productive group in society.

Officials said although prevention could be costly for most of
the developing countries, it was far cheaper to invest in
preventive activities than battling widespread AIDS.

"For most Asian countries, the insurance premium on the AIDS
epidemic when compared to the costs and strains imposed on the
nation state is the lesser of two evils," Thant said.