KL conference AIDS in Asia-Pacific

KL conference AIDS in Asia-Pacific

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Asia's largest AIDS conference has a
heavy topic on its agenda: How to control the epidemic in
countries where experts say the virus is growing at a faster rate
than anywhere in the world.

When some 3,000 experts, activists and AIDS sufferers begin
meeting on Sunday for the 5th International Congress on AIDS in Asia
and the Pacific, their defined task is to curb HIV's spread into
the next millennium in nations that are often hush-hush about
sex.

About 95 percent of people living with the HIV virus live in the
developing world, the vast majority in Africa. But experts see
Asia as the next trouble spot.

"In the last year, at least half of the new cases worldwide
came from South and Southeast Asia," said Marina Mahathir,
president of the Malaysian AIDS Council and chair of the four-day
conference.

About 7 million people in the Asia-Pacific region are living
with AIDS or HIV. The number might pale in comparison to the
nearly 21 million cases in Africa, but the "trend is upwards and
that is what's worrying," Mahathir said in an interview.

The UN Aids Program said in a statement that Asia had the most
rapid rate of growth in HIV infection, where the virus is
primarily transmitted between heterosexuals and by injected
drugs. India has more HIV-infected people, about 4 million, than
any country in the world, the UN said.

Five percent of all Cambodians - or nearly one of every 25
adults - has HIV or AIDS. In Thailand, the first Asian nation
heavily affected by the disease, 2 percent of the population is
infected, according to UNAIDS.

In Malaysia, the number of documented HIV cases since the
first case was reported in 1985 has jumped to 31,000, up from
6,000 cases in 1993.

The grim scenario is almost the opposite of what's happening
on the other side of the globe. In North America and Western
Europe, the rate of infection has been brought under control
after massive prevention campaigns, according to the United
Nations. Of those infected, fewer are dying with the availability
of anti-retroviral drugs.

"All the sophisticated new drugs are really a dream for most
people," Mahathir said.

Asia's two-year economic crisis has compounded problems faced
by already poor nations, unable to afford expensive medical
treatment, Mahathir said.

Much of the conference will focus on the region's religious
and cultural taboos which have stood in the way of AIDS
prevention.

"Denial is a very major problem," said Mahathir, the daughter
of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is credited with putting
AIDS on the public health agenda in this Southeast Asian nation.
"A lot of our societies are very conservative and would rather
not talk about it."

Large numbers of women have been documented with HIV and AIDS
in cultures that practice arranged marriage and allow men to have
multiple wives.

Malaysia was chosen to host the meeting, in part, because it
is one of the region's most progressive Muslim countries. While
Islam has no clear guidelines on using condoms, only married
couples are legally allowed to have sex.

To encourage the use of condoms outside marriage is akin to
promoting promiscuity and some religious communities brush off
AIDS as a punishment for an immoral act.

"Ultimately what we're trying to do is save lives, and that's
not contradictory to any religion at all," Mahathir said.

Meanwhile in Nairobi, amid dancing and the rhythmic pounding
of drums, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Friday
urged Kenya to redouble efforts to fight HIV infection and AIDS,
which claims the lives of 16 Kenyans every hour.

"AIDS is stealing Kenya's future," Albright told several
hundred children and young adults gathered at a local health
ministry office here after watching an energetic and educational
dance routine aimed at youth education about the deadly disease.

"It has already reduced life expectancy by 15 years and turned
back the clock on development," she said, praising Kenya for
establishing a comprehensive HIV/AIDS policy but imploring
Nairobi to do more.

"There is much more to do and there is no time to lose,"
Albright said, offering U.S. assistance in whatever form
possible.

The AIDS pandemic has left Kenya, along with many other
African countries, swimming in a sea of grim statistics. An
average of 500 people per day die of the disease in Kenya and
between 13 and 14 percent of all adults, about 1.9 million
people, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes it,
according the health ministry.

As many as 760,000 Kenyans have already died of the disease
and with some 200,000 expected to contract HIV this year, the
government estimates their deaths are causing an economic loss to
the country of 2.7 million dollars a day.