Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Friday November 28, 11:48 am EST
Ek Madra

"Land mines are more dangerous than AIDS. Mines blow your legs off and kill you," the 27-year-old shrugged as he swigged a cold beer in a noisy Phnom Penh nightclub.

Framed by lounging bar girls and gyrating dancers, he added, "I trust my girl. I don't use condoms."

To another Cambodian, a 26-year-old driver, living for the moment is more important than worrying about an infection that can take years to kill.

"What do I care about AIDS day?" he asked. "I was born to be happy. I need to have lots of fun before I say farewell to this life."

In a country struggling to forget the ravages of the Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians in the mid to late 1970s, a good time takes the same form from shantytown to big-city cafe.

"When I get drunk I like to go out and have sex. If the girl looks healthy that's fine," the driver said.

Such chilling complacency has helped make Cambodia home to the most explosive AIDS epidemic in Asia, health workers say.

"We have the fastest epidemic in the region. It's the worst," Tia Phalla, director of the National AIDS Program, told Reuters. "We say we are Asian, we are conservative, but we have sex here a lot."

Nearly half of all Cambodia's prostitutes have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, says Leo De Vos, chairman of the United Nations program UNAIDS in Cambodia.

"The use of condoms is rare and sex is cheap in this country -- from 15 cents to $15," De Vos said. "It's available for everyone from the cyclo (bicycle rickshaw) driver to the student. That worsens the explosion of AIDS."

Up to 120,000 of the country's 10.5 million people are HIV positive and the United Nations predicts up to one million people could be infected over the next decade. The disease could cost the impoverished country almost $3 billion in lost earnings over that period, the international body says.

Research this year shows 80 percent of police and military men visit prostitutes regularly but only about 15 percent use condoms on a regular basis. As few as three percent reported using condoms with their wives.

Seven percent of all soldiers are HIV positive and in some areas the rate is as high as 15 percent.

Widespread commercial sex and the lack of condom use means an estimated 30 to 50 new HIV infections in Cambodia every day, Tia Phalla said.

De Vos said the epidemic was young and only a small number of people had developed full-blown AIDS, contributing to the difficulties health workers faced in changing habits.

"It's not a very visual problem, so you believe if it doesn't happen around you it only happens to others," he said.

Africa is still the epicenter of the HIV epidemic but experts predict Asia will catch up -- fast. Six million of the 30 million cases of HIV infection worldwide are in South and Southeast Asia, according to the latest U.N. estimate.

On Sunday, the eve of World AIDS Day, 300 volunteers plan to go door-to-door in Phnom Penh handing out information on HIV and AIDS and on World AIDS Day the government will sponsor a public ceremony to reinforce the safe-sex message.

The theme of the public information effort is "Don't Bring AIDS Home," De Vos said.

"We will be saying to people that have sexual relations outside their home, 'don't bring it back to your wives'."

But for many Cambodians, male and female, the health message appears to be missing the mark.

"I don't use condoms. Why should I?" asked a 55-year-old businessman at a Phnom Penh bar. "I pay $20 for a young, pretty prostitute and I like natural sex. When I use a condom it feels too hot. Maybe I'll die in 10 years time anyway."

A bar girl showed equal recklessness. "If I was scared of AIDS I wouldn't be doing this job," she said.

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