PARIS, Dec 1 (AFP) - China laid an assault on stigma on Monday in the global action to mark World AIDS Day, as the United Nations pounded the drum for its plan to distribute HIV drugs to three million people by 2005.
Less than a week after two UN agencies branded China as being among the next big targets in the fast-spreading pandemic, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao staged a meeting, believed to be the first of its kind at his level, with AIDS patients at Beijing hospital.
"Premier Wen talked with three patients that were representing other AIDS patients," a spokesman at Ditan Infectious Diseases Hospital told AFP.
"He shook hands with them and made some inquiries about their lives and their families and he encouraged them to be brave and fight the disease."
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS last week estimated that by the end of this year, 40 million people will be living with AIDS or the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it.
Three million people will have died this year -- the equivalent to a fully-laden jumbo jet crashing every 90 minutes or so -- and five million others will have become infected.
China, India, Russia and Indonesia were named as countries that could follow Africa, home to three-quarters of HIV/AIDS victims, down the path to disaster.
Official indifference or denial, social taboo and discrimination are the forces that cause HIV to leap out of "risk" groups such as prostitutes and intravenous drug users and into the population's mainstream, the WHO/UNAIDS report said.
Wen's visit climaxed a series of initiatives in recent months in which China has started to release more credible figures about the state of its pandemic and cautiously started to promote condom use for safer sex.
"China has one million HIV-carriers today, and the number is increasing at a high speed," Vice Health Minister Ma Xiaowei was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying at a Monday AIDS fund-raiser.
In Pakistan, another conservative country where the infection rate is low but risks are high, World AIDS Day was commemorated by a candlelit vigil and parades by doctors and health workers in the port city of Karachi.
Pakistani and New Zealand cricketers vowed to wear red ribbons during a one-day international match in Lahore to show support for people with HIV/AIDS.
And Saudi Arabia, which traditionally shuns open discussion of the disease, acknowledged that it had 6,787 cases of HIV or AIDS -- nearly five times higher than the last time the tally was reported, in August 2002.
Just over a fifth of the total are Saudis, while the remainder are foreigners who are usually deported once they are diagnosed, Nasser al-Hazeem, director of the Saudi HIV/AIDS prevention programme, was quoted by Al-Riyadh newspaper as saying.
South Africa, the country worst hit by AIDS, was set to mark World AIDS Day with the culmination of its biggest-ever awareness drive and events with top personalities, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu and UNAIDS chief Peter Piot.
About 5.3 million South Africans out of a population of 44.8 million are infected with HIV or AIDS, more than any other country in the world.
India, whose tally of 4.58 million makes it the second largest, announced on Sunday it would launch a two-billion-rupee (43.6-million-dollar) programme to provide free medication to parents with HIV, children up to the age of 15 and poor patients using government hospitals.
The government is in negotiations with local drug companies to get "rock-bottom drug prices" for Indian AIDS patients, Health Minister Sushma Swaraj said.
In Geneva, the WHO and UNAIDS called on Monday for help to realise an ambitious programme to provide antiretroviral drugs to three million people in developing and transition countries by the end of 2005.
WHO Director General Jong-wook Lee said the pandemic was perhaps "the toughest health assignment the world has ever faced."
"The lives of millions of people are at stake. This strategy demands massive and unconventional efforts to make sure they stay alive."
The so-called "3 by 5" initiative is estimated to cost about 5.5 billion dollars (4.6 billion euros) but even if it is achieved, it will still only address roughly half of the people with HIV who are poor and in need.
Health experts say an unprecedented effort is needed to build medical infrastructure, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, to ensure the pills are distributed quickly, fairly and efficiently to diminish the risk of black markets and drug resistance.
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