KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 (AFP) - AIDS could wipe out Asia's spectacular gains over the past two decades unless governments keep funding social welfare programs despite the economic downturn, a World Bank expert warned Monday.

In Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Vietnam and southern China, AIDS had gained a "strong foothold" even before the financial crisis which erupted mid-1997, Martha Ainsworth said.

"In these countries HIV/AIDS threatens to slowly unravel the progress in improving the human condition and to eliminate if not reverse the benefits of the economic miracle," she told the 5th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

"Already three of these countries have lost two or three years of life expectancy to AIDS."

Ainsworth is a senior economist with the World Bank's development research group and an expert on the economic impact of AIDS on households.

She said high mortality from HIV/AIDS hit the most productive members of society, "threatening to eliminate or reverse development gains and place a huge burden on health systems."

Preventing AIDS was a core development issue, Ainsworth told the conference which groups delegates from 67 countries.

Other speakers have estimated there are seven million cases of HIV infection in the Asia/Pacific region, with most victims unaware of their status.

Health experts say Asia is second only to Africa in terms of the seriousness of the epidemic.

Ainsworth said there was no hard data yet from most Asian countries about the impact of recession on the spread of the disease. In Thailand, which had the region's most serious epidemic, 1998 data suggested "our worst fears ... were not realised."

Spending on health and education held steady and spending on social safety nets greatly increased, with public health insurance extended amid other measures. Falling incomes reduced demand for paid sex and the degree of condom use remained steady.

The number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases remained low in a sign people were still using condoms.

But injecting drug users showed a sharp rise in infections, by around 40-48 percent, with addicts possibly unable to afford the cost of new needles.

However, Ainsworth said Thailand, which has been widely praised during the conference, had the region's "most forceful, longstanding and successful" anti-AIDS program.

Indonesia and other recession-hit countries had been unable to maintain social spending.

Ainsworth said governments must provide information on HIV/AIDS, subsidise preventative measures and ensure the poor have access to prevention and care.

"Without the commitment of governments the epidemic can't be stopped."

She described HIV/AIDS prevention as a critical part of social safety net programs. "These programs must be protected in times of economic crisis, if not extended."

Even before the economic crisis, she said, Asian political commitment to AIDS prevention was weak. "Many policymakers and societies are still in denial."

"Many governments in this region have a window of opportunity to act early and prevent an epidemic ... act early and act now."

On Sunday the UN AIDS chief Peter Piot said Asia's economic crisis could worsen the epidemic by forcing more people into prostitution and cutting money available for health care.

Piot said the cost of drugs for treatment must be reduced -- possibly by compulsory licensing of them in poor countries.

According to UNAIDS, close to 700,000 young people get infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which leads to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), every year in the region.

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