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Asian countries not prepared for so



Asian countries not prepared for social battle against AIDS, HIV

By Sugita Katyal
The Asian Age (New Delhi)
July 1, 2000

New Delhi, June 30: Just a few years ago, Mala was the quintessential
middle-class Indian housewife. She cooked, cleaned and looked after her
two small children.

Last year, her life took a tragic turn: her husband died of AIDS, she
was diagnosed HIV-positive and her mother-in-law took her children sway
from her, saying they too would get the disease.

"When friends dropped in for a visit she would introduce me saying, 'She
is my son's widow. She has AIDS', " said Mala.

Until now, Asia has been more successful in holding the AIDS virus at
bay than Africa, where the disease has killed about 12 million people
and many more carry the HIV virus.

But with millions like Mala trapped in a web of misconceptions, myths
and prejudice, AIDS is now threatening to engulf many of Asia's
poverty-stricken countries.

According to new UNAIDS report, only three countries in Asia - Cambodia,
Burma and Thailand - have HIV infection rates exceeding on percent among
15 to 49-years-old.

But the low rates conceal huge numbers of affected people.

In India, for instance, 3.7 million are infected, more than in any other
country except South Africa. In China, an estimated 500,000 people,
mainly drug user, live with HIV/AIDS.

Gordon Alexander, senior country programme adviser of UNAIDS in India,
estimates that the number hit by the scourge in Asia will climb to about
eight million over the next five years from about six million.

"We've got a serious epidemic in Asia or a least in South Asia," he
said.

In India the disease is spreading from traditionally high-risk groups
such as commercial sex workers, drug user and homosexuals to large rural
swathes and urban areas.

Although the disease is concentrated in southern India, the western
state of Maharashtra and the northeast, rural areas in other parts of
the country are highly vulnerable because of large-scale migration and
repressive attitudes towards women.

"The dimensions of the AIDS epidemic in India are different from others
because here AIDS isn't a health issue but a development problem," said
Neelam Kapoor, joint director of the government's National Aids Control
Organisation. India is not alone. In Thailand, where a thriving sex
industry has contributed significantly to the virus, about one million
of the country's 60 million people are HIV infected.

"Thailand's infection rate is one of the worst in Asia, with one in
every 60 people infected," said Jon Ungphakorn, director of the AIDS
Access Foundation and a Thai senator.

In many countries like India, China and Singapore, the battle against
HIV is a social and cultural one against the social stigma attached to
the disease.

Last year, China - where health experts say there are about 800,000 HIV
carriers - broke a long-standing taboo against public discussion of
sexual health and launched a nationwide media campaign to curb the
spread of HIV through unsafe sex.

The country has also launched pilot projects, among them a drive to
place condom vending machines in bars, karaoke halls and universities,
but these have been stymied by conservative officials who believe the
problem is largely a foreign one.

Last December, China's first-ever condom advertisement featuring a
cartoon prophylactic fighting of HIV was banned by the state
administration for industry and commerce because it was thought to be
promoting sex products illegally. In Singapore, more than 3,000
foreigner and about 1,200 Singaporeans have been officially reported to
have been infected with the AIDS virus since 1985.

But Brenton Wong, honorary secretary of Singapore's Action for AIDS,
says the actual HIV incidence in the city state of 3.9 million people is
at least eight times higher than official data. "Stigmatisation and
denial is still very, very common so people are afraid to get tested and
many times won't even tell their families if they test positive," said
Mr Wong.

Cultural taboos such as public discussion about sex remain the biggest
difficulties for anti-AIDS campaigners in Communist-run Vietnam, where
the number of people detected with HIV has increased by 15-20 percent
annually. According to reports, nearly 20,000 have been tested HIV
positive in Vietnam, but media reported that number of cases is expected
to go up. (Reuters)