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.; Monday December 1, 4:03 pm EST
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

Heads of the top agencies fighting AIDS, from the United Nations to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), urged governments to give more to fight the virus and said there was new hope for preventing its spread.

"The epidemic is not over," Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations AIDS program UNAIDS, told a news conference held to mark World AIDS Day.

"Five years ago, we believed that about 12 million people in the world were infected with the AIDS virus," said Dr. Peter Lamptey, director of the AIDS Control and Prevention (AIDSCAP) Project. "Today, UNAIDS tell us the pandemic is much worse than we had ever imagined. More than 42 million people have been infected, and a staggering 30.6 million are living with HIV."

Piot said new drugs were keeping the virus in check for a few lucky people, but they offered no cure for anyone and little hope for developing countries.

"The report that UNAIDS and WHO (World Health Organization) have just published for World AIDS Day shows that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is far worse than we previously imagined," Piot said.

"Over 30 million people are now believed to be living with HIV infection, which is one in every 100 adults in the sexually active ages of 15 to 49 worldwide," he said. "This year alone, some 5.8 million people globally were newly infected with HIV, which is equivalent to nearly 16,000 infections a day -- nearly double the number we had previously calculated."

Brian Atwood, director of USAID, said children were starting to suffer the most. His agency released a report last month predicting that more than 40 million children in the 23 worst-hit countries would be left without one or both parents because of AIDS by 2000.

"The implications of this in terms of human and social costs are rather extraordinary," Atwood told the news conference. "It's having a devastating impact on development and we cannot ignore it."

Countries would be unable to develop their economies as their most productive workers died, and would be subject to social unrest as the orphaned children -- poor, malnourished and uneducated -- grew up.

Lamptey said teenagers and young adults accounted for three out of every five new HIV infections around the world.

"Two-thirds of all those who acquire HIV will become infected before they reach 25. The risk is greatest for teen-age girls. Worldwide up to 60 percent of all new HIV infections in women occur before the age of 20," Lamptey added.

"There is no HIV vaccine to protect these young people," he said. "And if they do become infected, most will not benefit from expensive new antiviral therapies. For them, prevention is the only hope."

Lamptey said studies had shown early and comprehensive sex education programs could influence young people to postpone sexual activity.

"At the same time, we must recognize that many young people are already having sex and inform them about all their protection options," he added. "As one peer educator from a Kenyan university noted, 'It's very hard to start telling them "No, don't do it" when they are already doing it."'

But Lamptey said simple projects could help. He described one experiment in Bali, Indonesia with young boys and girls who were known to be experimenting with sex.

The project included peer education, free condom distribution and a referral system in three urban areas, Lamptey said.

"In just 18 months, it achieved some remarkable results. A survey among target audience members found that appropriate perceptions of personal HIV risk had more than doubled," he said. "Reported condom use also doubled in two of the cities and increased by 50 percent in another, while a total of 71 percent of the respondents said they always or almost always used condoms."

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