Asia at critical stage of AIDS battle

The number of Asians infected with the virus jumped by one million over the past two years, bringing the total number of infected people in the region to 8.2 million, according to an annual AIDS epidemic report by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation.

Some 5.1 million of those infected people live in India, the highest number in the world except for South Africa, with the virus spreading fastest in Asia and Eastern Europe.

Asia, the world's most populous region with 3.9 billion people, has long been identified by the UN as a sitting duck for a major epidemic, which threatens to be as bad as in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the people with HIV.

The report revealed alarming increases in the rates of infection among intravenous drug users but said the sex industry was still the main driver of transmissions.

"Most new infections in Asia occur when men buy sex, and large numbers of men do so," said the report. It said up to 10 percent of Asian men pay for sex.

Many sex workers were still prepared to work without condoms because some clients were willing to pay much higher prices for unprotected sex, it said. Fewer than one in five sex workers in Jakarta massage parlours reported using condoms.

The report said HIV rates were also rising sharply in several Asian countries due to dramatic infection hikes among illegal drug injectors, particularly in Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam and parts of China.

"One in two injecting drug users in Jakarta now test positive for HIV, while in cities such as Pontianak (Indonesia) more than 70 percent of drug injectors are being found to be HIV-positive," the report said.

It added that drug-injectors in these countries were "kick-starting" wider epidemics by then having sex with non-injecting people, and recommended more nations adopt opiate substitution and needle-exchange programs to cut down on the use of dirty needles.

The report also said HIV epidemics were already deeply entrenched in countries such as India, Myanmar and China where current anti-AIDS campaigns were making limited headway.