Asian Nations Mark World AIDS Day with Warnings, Protests

China observed World AIDS Day Saturday with a warning that the disease continues to spread rapidly in the world's most populous nation. Cambodia, meanwhile, expressed pride at reducing the rate of HIV-infection in one of the Asian countries hardest hit by the disease.

Chinese Health Minister Zhang Wenkang said that AIDS increasingly threatens ordinary Chinese, not just those in high-risk groups. "At present, the AIDS situation is trending toward rapid increase," Zhang said in remarks carried by China Women's News and other state newspapers. The number of newly reported infections jumped 67 percent in the first six months of 2001, compared to the first half of last year. Government experts estimate more than 600,000 Chinese -- in a population of 1.26 billion -- were infected with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2000.

In Cambodia, where 169,000 are infected in a population of 11 million, infection rates among pregnant women declined from 3.2 percent in 1997 to 2.3 percent in 2000, according to a UN report. "Our response to AIDS in the past 10 years has produced a proud result," said Oum Sopheap, chairman of a committee that coordinates government and private efforts to combat HIV infection. "The rate of infection has begun to fall," said Sopheap. Speaking at a ceremony in central Phnom Penh Park, Dr. Bill Pigott, World Health Organization director for Cambodia, said that only Thailand and Uganda among developing countries had achieved such success.

In Hong Kong, a small group of protesters marched to China's representative office demanding more publicity of the HIV epidemic, greater prevention efforts and better treatment of Chinese patients. The Chinese government has lately grown more open in recognizing the danger of the infection. Newspapers on Saturday carried heavy coverage of AIDS and stories about the infected -- stories that the entirely state-run media had suppressed just a few months ago at the behest of local officials.

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