20 percent drop

According to a new United Nations report, the number of new HIV infections in the Asia-Pacific region fell by 20 percent between 2001 and 2009. The gains were attributed to preventative programmes and increased access to antiretroviral drugs.

The 10th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) began its congress in South Korea's southern port city of Busan Friday. Some 4,000 people from 70 countries are taking part in the world's second-largest conference on the disease that will run through Tuesday.

As the congress got underway, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) launched its report "HIV in Asia and the Pacific: Getting to Zero," which found that the number of new HIV infections dropped from about 450,000 in 2001 to 360,000 in 2009.

"I think it is very important to make the world understand that we are at the crossroads today in Asia and the Pacific because efforts have been made," UNAIDS executive director Michael Sidibe said. However, he also warned against complacency saying that there was also a growing number of infections among high-risk populations in the region.

According to the UN report, an estimated 4.9 million people were living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific in 2009, a figure that had remained relatively stable since 2005. Most HIV patients lived in 11 countries - Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam.

Government prevention works

Government prevention programs for people who buy and sell sex had paid off in Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Thailand the report found. Moreover, the growing access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs had also had a significant impact on the decline of incidence. Between 2006 and 2009, there was a three-fold increase in access to antiretroviral therapy. However, the drugs still remained unavailable to some 60 percent of HIV patients in the region. The report stated that Cambodia is one of only eight countries in the world to provide antiretroviral therapy to more than 80 percent of the people eligible for it.

UNAIDS warned regional governments to continue to target high-risk populations on Friday, despite the improved general outlook. In the Philippines, which once had one of the slowest HIV infection growth rates in the region, there had been a jump among certain groups, including drug users, the report found. In Indonesia, more than one in three people who inject drugs are estimated to be HIV positive. About a third of transgender sex workers in the Indonesian capital Jakarta are also infected with HIV.

The report also noted that international funding for "the global AIDS response" had declined for the first time in 2010. Among countries reporting detailed expenditure data in 2010, only 8 percent of total AIDS spending in South Asia and 20 percent in Southeast Asia focused on HIV prevention among key populations at higher risk of HIV infection.

"Getting to zero new HIV infections in Asia and the Pacific will demand national responses based on science and the best available evidence," Sidibe said on Friday. "HIV programmes must be sufficiently resourced and solidly focused on key populations. Investments made today will pay off many-fold in the future."

Author: Arafatul Islam (dpa, AFP)
Editor: Anne Thomas