Thousands of Delegates Converge on Melbourne for AIDS in Asia and Pacific Congress

Delegates at an international conference on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific warned governments that HIV is gathering pace through the region and that they could no longer ignore the epidemic. Representatives from more than 40 countries are due to attend the gala ceremony Friday night opening the 6th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) which runs until Oct. 10 in Melbourne, Australia.

Werasit Sittitrai, associate director of UNAIDS' Asia, Pacific and Middle Eastern Division, said the congress comes at a critical time when some countries have become complacent about the epidemic. In Asia, about 6.4 million people carry HIV, an infection rate second only to sub-Saharan Africa. "A lot of countries feel that AIDS is not here, and will not be here," Sittitrai said at a news conference.

A UN-sponsored report released Thursday by the nongovernmental organization Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic (MAP) Network, showed that the once relatively low levels of infection of HIV/AIDS in Asia have increased markedly. While only Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia showed substantial HIV epidemics in 1999, the virus has now spread rapidly in Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Nepal and Vietnam, according to the report. In China -- home to a fifth of the world's people -- the infection is moving into new groups of the population.

Shabana Azmi, an Indian film star and member of India's upper house of parliament said, "We have officially 3.5 million HIV-positive cases in India, but in spite of that . . . there is absolutely no political commitment whatsoever."

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