BANGKOK, Dec 17 (AFP) - Asia must seize on a "window of opportunity" to prevent the HIV-AIDS crisis from developing into a pandemic on the same scale that has devastated Africa, the Red Cross said at a major conference Monday.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the numbers of people living with HIV-AIDS are rising fast in the region, expanding by nearly 140 percent between 1997 and 2001.
"All community-based organisations ... must join forces to ensure that the pandemic is contained in Asia where almost half a million people have died this year out of an infected population of 7.1 million," said the federation's head of health and community care Dr. Alvaro Bermejo.
Speaking at the first meeting on HIV-AIDS patient care in Asia, Bermejo said that much of the damage wreaked by the disease on families and communities could be prevented by better patient management.
"HIV-AIDS doesn't have to lead to death. With care and treatment positive people can live with HIV," he said in a statement. "We think of care as a form of prevention. Without care there can be no successful prevention."
Thousands of activists, researchers and public health officials convened in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai Monday for the Fifth International Conference on Home and Community Care for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS.
The global forum on treatment and support for sufferers worldwide will run until Thursday, and mull a range of issues including discrimination against people with the deadly virus.
Stefan Seebacher, regional chief for the International Federation, told AFP that a draft strategy aimed at seizing on the window of opportunity to halt the spread of the disease was being deliberated.
"One of the methods will be to scale up the home care component, which we are very much involved with in Africa," he said.
"This would strengthen the capacity to deliver care to families and communities, through Red Cross volunteers, and help with advocacy for access to drugs."
Seebacher said Asian nations were a mixed bag when it came to their reactions to the spread of HIV-AIDS.
"In Thailand, the response by the government has been very good and very swift. But in other countries like Myanmar we are very much behind."
"In China the situation is now becoming very serious, expecially in southern China and particularly Yunnan province where we are talking about large numbers even if the percentage infection is are quite low."
The conference -- co-sponsored by the International Federation, the Thai government and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- was previously held in Europe but moved to Thailand because of its success fighting AIDS.
"In Asia, Thailand is on the forefront of HIV/AIDS response," Seebacher said. "In terms of people affected and need for care, it is one of the countries that is most relevant. It's a champion of AIDS response in Asia."
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