ISLAMABAD, Nov 29 (AFP) - Asia-Pacific societies could collapse like some in Africa as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, a top United Nations envoy warned at a regional conference in the Pakistani capital Monday.

"There is nothing whatsoever in our cultures or lifestyles to prevent an African-scale outbreak of HIV/AIDS in Asia," said Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor and special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on the disease in the region.

"We are at make or break stage in the fight against AIDS," she told the regional Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS Best Practices Conference in Islamabad.

"HIV/AIDS is the greatest long-term threat to human security, human rights and economic development that the Asia-Pacific region will face in the next decade."

Asia-Pacific is now about 13 years behind Africa, where societies in the worst-affected countries, including prosperous Botswana, are collapsing and economic growth is disappearing, said Sadik.

"It could happen in this region; it will happen, unless we act," she cautioned.

"Prevalance rates are still low in most parts of most countries, but this is rapidly changing.

"Let me emphasise: all the conditions are in place for a general outbreak in Asia-Pacific in the next ten years."

Over 300 delegates from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Vietnam and the United Kingdom are attending the three-day conference, the region's first to examine best practices in controlling the disease.

Seven million people in Asia Pacific countries are currently infected with HIV/AIDS, according to UN figures. One third are women, and four million of them are in India.

More than half a million people die each year and the cost to the region in 2001 was 7.5 billion dollars.

In South Asia, women and girls are most vulnerable. Young women on the subcontinent account for 62 percent of infections in the 15-24 year old age group. In India, 90 percent of HIV-positive women are married and monogamous.

Without action 10 million adults and children in Asia-Pacific will be affected in the next six years at a cost of 17.5 billion dollars, Sadik warned.

"A widening pandemic will mean the end of efforts to eradicate poverty, and empower women and girls, who are most of the poor," she said.

Under UN estimates, HIV/AIDS could slow poverty reduction by up to 60 percent a year in Cambodia, and by nearly a quarter in India.

To avert five million new infections and 100,000 deaths annually by 2010, five billion dollars a year needs to be poured into comprehensive HIV/AIDS programs, Sadik said.

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