PARIS, Nov 24 (AFP) - The current spread of AIDS is "extremely disturbing," according to the executive director of United Nations agency UNAIDS which has published an alarming report on the problem.

The report issued on Tuesday by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation said a record 2.6 million people died of AIDS this year while new infections continued unabated, with an estimated 5.6 million adults and children contracting HIV.

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published Wednesday, Dr. Peter Piot said the situation had worsened "with the outbreak of the epidemic in Southeast Asia, its aggravation among drug addicts in China, (and) the amazing increase in its prevalence in the Russian Federation."

The UNAIDS chief said that in the Moscow region there was "galloping drug addiction, a situation worse than in Africa, with widescale corruption."

On China, where "more than half a million people live with the HIV virus," Piot said the authorities had realized the seriousness of the matter "and decreed that the fight against and prevention of AIDS were national priorities."

More than 16 million people had died since the start of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1970s and 33.6 million would enter the new year with HIV, the report said.

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