Associated Press - Monday, August 13, 2001
David Thurber - Associated Press Writer

It said Asia has managed to greatly reduce the severity of its AIDS epidemic with programs encouraging condom use. For example, in Thailand, one of the most seriously affected nations, millions of lives have been saved by a condom program aimed at the sex industry, WHO said.

But it said the spread of the sex trade away from traditional red light districts toward bars, karaoke parlors and restaurants - where prostitution is often a part-time occupation - made dissemination of condoms and information about AIDS more difficult.

"We are concerned about Asia because there is evidence that sexual behavior is changing and social norms are changing, and people are more exposed to risky behavior," said Cris Tunon, the agency's program officer in Vietnam.

Students, for example, may occasionally sell sex to help pay for their education and not see themselves as sex workers at high risk of AIDS, the agency said.

Most commercial sex in the region still takes place without condoms, it said.

In reports prepared for a conference promoting government condom programs, WHO said Asia's sex trade was expanding because of rising income disparities as the region develops, poverty among women, and increased mobility of the people.

While the percentage of people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, remains relatively small in most Asian countries, it still translates into large numbers because of the region's large populations. An estimated 6 million people in Asia are currently HIV positive, with 3.9 million in India alone, WHO said. The highest infection rate is in Cambodia, where 2.8 percent of the adult population are HIV carriers, it said.

By 2005, 800,000 Asians are likely to die each year from AIDS, WHO said. The epidemic's future course will depend on how successfully countries in the region - where prostitution is widely illegal - implement condom-use programs, it said.

"It's a matter of accepting a reality. All attempts to eliminate prostitution have failed," Tunon said.

"What we have seen in recent years is a change in governments to pragmatic and effective approaches," he said. "Step by step, countries in this part of the world are learning from each other."

WHO recommended that the region follow the example of Thailand and Cambodia, which it said had used condom programs "to turn the tide of rising HIV by focusing on the main driving force of the epidemic - commercial sex workers and their clients."

WHO said the region's sex industry is extremely profitable. While sex tourism involving foreigners is highly visible, it is small compared to the region's much larger domestic sex industry, it said.

In Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, the sex industry accounts for an estimated 2 percent to 14 percent of the gross domestic product, it said.

Even in industrialized Japan, its earnings amount to an estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of the GDP, WHO said.
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