Asians face ‘silent tsunami', says UN - Financial Times

World / Asia-Pacific
Asians face ‘silent tsunami', says UN
By Frances Williams in Geneva, Mariko Sanchanta in Tokyo and agencies
Published: July 3 2005 18:19 | Last updated: July 3 2005 18:19 - Financial Times

Asia is witnessing the fastest growth in Aids cases in the world and the epidemic will gather pace even more rapidly in the next five years unless governments take action, the United Nations Aids agency said at the weekend.

Speaking at a conference in Kobe, Japan, J.V.R. Prasado Rao, director of UNAids' regional support team, said governments needed to view Aids as a natural disaster on the scale of the tsunamis that hit south Asia in December.

“The virus doesn't kill hundreds of thousands at a thunderous stroke like the tsunami, and it doesn't provide vivid television pictures.

“It is more like a silent tsunami,” he said.

A UNAids report, released at the conference, said 8.2m people were infected with HIV in the Asia-Pacific region, the biggest total anywhere after sub-Saharan Africa. East Asia has the world's fastest rate of infection, owing to the rapid spread of HIV among injecting drug users and sex workers in China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

A “business-as-usual” approach could see 12m people newly infected with HIV in the region over the next five years, the report warned. It urged countries in the region to scale up prevention and care programmes. An estimated $5bn (€4bn, £3bn) will need to be spent in 2007, three times the $1.6bn now projected.

Peter Piot, executive director of UNAids, said: “The risk of Aids spreading further in Asia and the Pacific is now higher than ever.”

Although HIV infection rates are still very low, in such a populous region that translates into millions of infected people, the report points out.

India, with fewer than 1 per cent of adults affected, has more than 5m people with HIV, nearly as many as South Africa where more than one in five are affected.

In Japan, there were more than 1,000 new HIV infections in 2004, the biggest-ever yearly increase, while the total number of HIV-positive individuals exceeded 10,000.

Although the numbers are still relatively small, inadequate public awareness and education could lead to much larger increases. While HIV infections are still mainly confined to vulnerable groups, conditions are ripe for a more general spread of the disease, the report suggests. It says 5 to 10 per cent of men in the Asia-Pacific region buy sex and are thus at risk not only of contracting HIV but passing it on to their partners.