GENEVA, Nov 21, 2006 (AFP) - Some 8.6 million Asians are infected with the HIV virus, UNAIDS said on Tuesday, warning the disease is thriving on risky behaviour in Southeast Asia and slowly taking hold in China, the world's most populous nation.
An estimated 960,000 Asians were newly infected over the past year while about 630,000 people died of AIDS-related illness, the United Nations agency coordinating the global campaign against the disease said in its latest report.
HIV now affects 10 percent more Asians than in 2004, and new infections have increased by 12 percent.
"Even as we do quite well with prevention, it's sobering to see how many people do not understand the personal risk they themselves carry. That's a major challenge," said Kevin De Cock, head of HIV at the World Health Organisation.
An estimated 235,000 people are receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment in Asia, three times as many as in 2003, the "AIDS Update 2006" said.
However, that represents just 16 percent of those suffering from the immune deficiency disease in Asia. Only Thailand has managed to deliver treatment to more than half of those who need it, UNAIDS said.
The report said India accounted for two-thirds of the Asian total with 5.7 million HIV positive cases in 2005.
However, just 100,000 people in the country are on life-saving anti-retroviral drugs, two thirds of them through costly private health care, De Cock said.
"As far as treatment is concerned, I think that India has not been as successful as many other countries," he told journalists.
The epidemic appears to be stable or declining in some parts of the world's second most populous nation but spreading more widely among women, according to the report.
Southeast Asia still accounts for the highest infection levels, through a combination of the three most risky forms of sexual behaviour: unprotected paid sex, use of injected illicit drugs, and a growing number of male homosexual cases.
UNAIDS said "serious epidemics" among male sexual partners "are now becoming evident" in Cambodia, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Very few of those countries, the report said, have AIDS programmes that adequately acknowledge the role of sex between men in their national epidemics, the report cautioned.
In China, authorities believe about 44 percent of the estimated 650,000 people with HIV contracted the disease through injecting drugs.
UNAIDS said half of new HIV infections in China in 2005 occurred during risky unprotected sexual relations.
"This indicates that HIV is spreading gradually from people at higher risk of exposure to the general population, and subsequently the number of women becoming infected with HIV is growing," the agency said.
UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said: "China is a country that is undergoing incredible (social) transition and transformation, and we know from experience that's fertile ground for the spread of HIV."
The report said that despite expansion of an anti-AIDS campaign in China "basic elements in China's HIV response still need to be improved."
"HIV awareness is very low -- including among political leaders at some levels -- and stigma remains a problem in many areas," the report said.
The epidemic is thriving in Vietnam, where the number of people with HIV has doubled since 2000 to reach an estimated 250,000 people, according to UNAIDS.
In Thailand, the number of new HIV infections continued to drop in 2005, declining by 10 percent over the previous year to 18,000, but the epidemic is changing shape.
The 580,000 Thais with the disease include a growing number of married women who were probably infected by their husbands.
A success story was reported in Cambodia where the epidemic was reported to be stabilising, especially through behavioural change and high rates of condom use.
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