NEW DELHI, Dec 1, 2006 (AFP) - AIDS sufferers marched in India, activists staged a carnival of condoms in Bangkok and UN chief Kofi Annan urged greater efforts to fight the disease as countries across the globe marked World AIDS Day Friday.
Annan said the incurable disease and its precursor HIV virus had killed 25 million people and infected 40 million more in the quarter century since the first case was reported.
"Accountability -- the theme of this World AIDS Day -- requires every president and prime minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that 'AIDS stops with me,'" he said.
But he stressed that accountability applied to everyone.
"And it requires every one of us to help bring AIDS out of the shadows and spread the message that silence is death," he said, as the UNAIDS organisation reported 4.3 million new infections this year.
In India, which has the world's highest caseload, thousands of protestors demanded low-cost treatment for people in the later stages of illness, saying they were neglected by government schemes which focus on early care.
"Don't turn your back on AIDS," cried marchers in Guwahati in the northeast state of Assam, which is in the grips of a worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic.
India may lead the way in producing generic HIV/AIDS drugs, but is failing to make low-cost treatment available to its own 5.7 million sufferers, experts and activists say.
In downtown Bangkok's Lumpini Park the carnival was designed to appeal to younger people -- with dart throwing to pop condom balloons, races to blow up condoms, and demonstrations with mannequins of how to use a female condom.
"It's very important for us to keep away HIV. It's really important to my future, I don't want to risk my life," said Vittaya Boonloh, an 18-year-old student at Assumption Commercial College.
Thailand has also announced it will break the patent on Merck's HIV/AIDS drug Efavirenz to allow access to the live-saving drug at a lower price.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, thousands of people including sex workers and others diagnosed with HIV/AIDS rallied outside parliament.
"Many young people who inject drugs are now carriers of the virus. The situation is becoming very alarming," said Tariqul Islam, director of the Alliance for Cooperation and Legal Aid Bangladesh.
US President GHeorge W. Bush pledged US commitment to the global fight and said abstinence was "the only sure way" to avoid the spread of the virus.
He said the United States and other nations were promoting a comprehensive strategy to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"This includes the ABC approach encouraging abstinence, being faithful, and using condoms, with abstinence as the only sure way to avoid the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS," he added.
The World Health Organisation said high-risk behaviour was evident.
It said an estimated 8.6 million people were living with HIV in the Asia Pacific region in 2006, 960,000 of whom were infected in the past year.
"High-risk behaviour, such as injecting drug use, unprotected paid sex and unprotected sex between men, is especially evident in the HIV epidemics in some regions, including Asia," said WHO regional director Shigeru Omi.
China vowed to promote condom use among its millions of homosexuals amid data showing only one in five gays uses them regularly.
"Prevention efforts among gays will be key to the country's AIDS control," Wu Zunyou from the Chinese Disease Prevention and Control Center was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
Neighbouring North Korea claimed it had no cases of AIDS at all, attributing the absence to the wise guidance of the Stalinist state's leader Kim Jong-Il.
Pyongyang made the claim as health authorities in Seoul said new infections in South Korea had risen 13 percent from a year earlier.
In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party threw a feast for people with HIV while urging the military government to do more to ease suffering.
Myanmar has one of the worst AIDS epidemics in Asia, which is exacerbated by a crumbling health care system.
Globally, an estimated 39.5 million people, many unaware of their status, are now living with HIV, according to UNAIDS.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the hardest-hit region, with 24.7 million people affected, followed by South and Southeast Asia, with 7.8 million; Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with 1.7 million; Latin America, with 1.7 million; and North America, with 1.4 million.
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