WHO urges greater effort to fight AIDS in Asia-Pacific

MANILA: The World Health Organisation called on Asia-Pacific leaders to make a greater effort in the fight against HIV/AIDS as the number of people with the virus continues to grow.

In 2006, an estimated 8.6 million people in the region are living with HIV, the WHO said, 960,000 of whom were infected in the past year.

In China alone, some 650,000 were reported living with the disease at the end of last year. "The number of people living with HIV continues to grow," said Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific Region, based in Manila.

"High-risk behaviour, such as injecting drug use, unprotected paid sex and unprotected sex between men, is especially evident in the HIV epidemics in some regions, including Asia," Omi said.

In Vietnam, the number of people living with HIV has doubled since 2000 and reached an estimated 260,000 people in 2005. In Papua New Guinea, the number of HIV/AIDS cases dramatically increased, with HIV rates among the adult population now in excess of one percent.   

"Even as authorities expand the national response to HIV/AIDS in China, the virus is spreading constantly from most-at-risk populations to the general population," said the WHO. 

Half of the new infections this year were the result of unprotected sex while an estimated 44 percent of people living with HIV are believed to have been infected while injecting drugs.

"National surveillance data noted that as many as 11 percent of drug users also engage in high-risk sexual activities." 

The statement said that risky sexual behaviour among injecting drug users compound the likelihood of HIV spreading beyond the risk population groups in the region.   

Omi said greater effort was needed by governments across the Asia-Pacific region if the spread of HIV is to be reduced.