Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc.; Thursday June 25, 2:52 am EST
Chris Johnson

The result will be a faster spread of HIV, more people developing AIDS, less productivity, and many more deaths.

"The poor will be worst affected," said Paul Toh, Bangkok-based spokesman for UNAids, the joint Unilive in Asia, according to data published this week by UNAids ahead of the 12th International Conference on AIDS, which starts in Geneva on Sunday.

This makes Asia the second biggest region of infection after sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 21 million.

Only a small fraction of HIV carriers and AIDS sufferers live in Western Europe or in North America, where the disease first gained prominence in the early 1980s.

In the West, high-profile awareness campaigns, well-funded medical research and expensive drug therapy have slowed infection dramatically and helped lower death rates.

In the more developed Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, there is little evidence so far of an impact from the economic crisis. Campaigns run by the World Bank and other agencies in India, Cambodia and elsewhere are also unaffected.

But in many of the poorer parts of Asia, overwhelmed by economic crisis during the last year, the battle against HIV and AIDS is on the retreat. In some of these countries HIV is spreading by as much as 25 or 30 percent a year, officials say.

Figures for health spending are difficult to obtain but officials say budgets have been cut back with all other state expenditure since Asia plunged into a slump last year.

In Thailand, which has an estimated 800,000 HIV-positive people, the Ministry of Public Health has cut 30 percent off its budget for HIV prevention and education, according to UNAids.

Grappling with crisis, Thailand is complying with strict conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund as part of a $17.2 billion bail-out package for its economy, which is expected to contract by at least five percent this year.

"The World Bank has provided some additional money, but generally in Thailand and elsewhere, there has been a cut in the budgets for all things," said Meechai Viravadhya, dubbed "Mr Condom" thanks to the campaign he led to prevent the spread of HIV in Thailand in the early 1990s.

"AIDS spending is often not seen as a priority," he said.

In the Philippines the picture is similar with 25 percent slashed this year off all previously-approved government budgets, said Maria Elena Borromeo, AIDS programme director at the Department of Health in Manila.

"Poverty and other social problems put people more at risk and make people more vulnerable to HIV infection. If there is economic crisis there will be more prostitution and inter-related social problems," she added.

Poverty helps the spread of HIV by lowering general levels of health, said Phillip Hazelton, at Australian People Health Education Development Abroad in Canberra.

"Transmissions are easier when other levels of STDs (sexually transmitted disease) are prevalent and when general health conditions are lower and when access to condoms is harder or more expensive," he said.

Indra Kumari Nadchatram, executive director of the Malaysian AIDS Foundation, said the crisis had hit the AIDS fight by increasing transmission and by cutting money for intervention.

"More people are getting infected, and those that are getting laid off work cannot afford the care and treatment."

"Getting funds is also a problem," she said. "When companies had larger profit margins, contributions were not a problem. But when you are in the red, how are you going to give to charity?"

Many of the victims of the financial crisis will be HIV patients receiving very expensive courses of anti-retroviral drugs, which are currently subsidised by the government.

"You have to remember we already have people with HIV who are dependent on us for drugs, for treatment," said Borromeo.

"Fortunately we still have only a few cases that have come out in the open, so we can still subsidise them at the moment and can cope with it. But we really don't know what will happen tomorrow or in the days to come."
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