A report called Redefining AIDS in Asia: Crafting an Effective Response has said that Asia was being hurt in the fight against AIDS because of unsafe sex.
The report said 10 million women in Asia sold sex, while 75 million brought it. Commercial sex was the main reason for widespread HIV infection followed by shared needles and sex among men."Countries at the early stages of the epidemic needed to spend an average of 50 cents per capita to reverse the epidemic," said C Rangarajan, chairman of the nine-member commission on AIDS. "Every dollar spent on early prevention would save $8 in treatment costs later. Yet, the money spent on HIV programmes from national budgets decreased over the past decade in the 23 countries surveyed, the only exceptions being India and China."
It is estimated that there are 2.5 million people infected with HIV in India. This is over 50 percent of 4.9 million HIV population.
The report said that governments must take steps to prevent the spread of HIV else there would be 10 million cases in Asia by 2020.
Source-Medindia
RAS/L
