COPENHAGEN, Dec 5 (AFP) - UN agencies on Tuesday issued an urgent appeal to European governments to help stop the spread of AIDS across Eastern Europe and former Soviet states or risk facing an Africa-style epidemic.

"It is imperative that European countries intensify their action and their support if they want to roll back the AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and do so before it is too late," said a joint declaration.

The appeal has been launched by the UN childrens' fund UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the AIDS body UNAIDS, to coincide with a meeting of 80 AIDS experts at the WHO's European headquarters.

The two-day meeting in the Danish capital has been focusing on measures to stop the spread of AIDS on the European continent, and ways in which a perceived catastrophe can be averted in eastern countries.

According to UNAIDS estimates published last week, the number of people in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, has rocketted from 420,000 to 700,000 in just one year.

"Africa used to have 400,000 HIV cases. Now it has four million. We have to act now," the joint declaration warned.

Most new infections are through intravenous drug use, but specialists are also warning of a wave of new infections through sexual contact that could cause a pandemic in three to four years.

"The moment has come to react and bring massive support to these countries," declared Dr. Marc Danzon, WHO director for Europe. "Time is short, and the current generation of Eastern European children and adolescents is a generation under threat."

"The solution resides in a readiness for political initiative. That is why we call to the leaders of European governments to use their New Year messages to state their support for a domestic and Europe-wide plan of action."

WHO asserts that the international community can mobilise resources out of reach for countries most badly hit by the latest AIDS epidemic -- Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.

"We have a unique opportunity to contain this epidemic with rapid action, carefully formed and well coordinated, and fully supported by international organisations," the joint declaration said.

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