Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - August 18, 2003
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi
Based on documents prepared for a meeting today in Laos, the WHO said 6-9 billion condoms were distributed a year, well short of demand of 24 billion condoms a year.
In China alone, more than a billion condoms were needed in the sex industry, according to calculations based on official estimates of six million sex workers and an average of 0.5 clients per night.
Condom use is still low in most countries in the region and studies have shown that less than 20% of sex workers consistently use condoms in China.
The Asia-Pacific region, which has seven million people with HIV, is set to be the epicentre of the pandemic. At least 30 million people could be infected with HIV in India and China by 2010, said the WHO.
"Condoms save lives. We need to vigorously step up promotion of this life-saving device to prevent millions of people getting infected," said Giovanni Deodato, the WHO representative of Laos.
The meeting will promote 100% condom use in the sex industry.
The WHO said while a substantial proportion of HIV infections in Asia were attributable to commercial sex, many infections resulted from a small pool of infected sex workers as seen in Thailand.
Thailand and Cambodia are thought to be alone in Asia in having falling HIV infection rates.
Last year, the sex industry accounted for only 16% of HIV infections in Thailand and 21% in Cambodia.
Condom use needs to be expanded, it said, particularly in the sex industry, where the rate of sexually transmitted infections was high.
The United Nations Population Fund said the need for condoms for HIV prevention would be more than double over the next 15 years.
China, Burma, Mongolia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos have introduced condom-use programmes.
Burma needs 50 million condoms a year but does not make them locally. Several million condoms are imported a year, mainly by NGOs.
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