United Arab Emirates Among Countries With Lowest AIDS Cases: WHO

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is among the world's lowest, the Khaleej Times reported Thursday. However, UAE should break its silence about the disease and develop campaigns to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS because building awareness is the only means to preventing an epidemic, said Taghreed Haider, a UN Development Program official in Abu Dhabi. Haider said the multiethnic social fabric of UAE -- characterized by high rates of mobility, increasing unemployment, and drug use -- could hasten the speed of an epidemic in the country. A World Health Organization report showed that HIV/AIDS' spread in the Arab region has remained relatively low, at around 600,000 cases. In 2003, 55,000 new HIV/AIDS cases and around 45,000 AIDS-related deaths were reported in the region. On June 26-27, a workshop on HIV/AIDS in the Gulf will take place in Manama, Bahrain.

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