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AIDS hitting Asian gays at
high rates warns UNUNITED
NATIONS (AFP) — HIV infection rates among gay men in many parts of Asia
are as severe as those which devastated US homosexual communities in the
late 1980s, top officials of the UNAIDS agency said Tuesday.
"All over Asia there are now epidemics of HIV in men who have sex with
men of the same magnitude that we saw in the US 25 years ago," said
Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director.
Launching his agency's 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic, he urged
more action to prevent the spread of the disease among gay men who have
unsafe sex and stressed the importance of working with affected
communities.
"That is something that has been detected fairly recently. There is not
enough action yet but we are now starting programs," he added.
Paul De Lay, director of Evidence, Monitoring and Policy at UNAIDS, said
the HIV epidemic among gay communities in Asia was not new, but that it
had recently reached the levels seen in cities such as San Francisco at
the end of the 1980s when HIV infections reached their peak.
He said it could be due to a number of factors, including less funding
for programs that target men who have sex with men and the fact that
there were new groups who were less aware of the risks of unprotected
sex.
"Asia has recognized populations of men who have sex with men for quite
some time," he told AFP. "The epidemic in these populations started in
the mid-1990s. What we see now is a resurgence."
"There are countries where the percentage of people infected are similar
to what we were seeing in San Francisco or in Berlin or in London where
up to 15 to 20 percent of men who have sex with men are HIV positive,"
he added.
The report meanwhile noted that unprotected sex between men was a
"potentially significant but under-researched aspect of the HIV
epidemics in Asia," citing countries such as Thailand and Vietnam.
"Recent study data from several major cities in the region, from Bangkok
to Ho Chi Minh City, show increasing HIV prevalence among men who have
sex with men," the report said.
In China, unsafe sex between men could account for up to seven per cent
of HIV infections, it noted.
De Lay said there were also high infection rates among gay populations
in cities such as Chennai and Mumbai in India and in Indonesia's capital
Jakarta.
He added that these communities often faced homophobia from the wider
population, as well as discrimination from health care providers, which
discouraged them from seeking information and getting tested.
"Even without blatant national laws that criminalize homosexual behavior,
you can still have a gradation of policies and practices that can be
almost as bad," he said.
De Lay pointed to a similar resurgence of HIV infections among gay
populations in the US and western Europe, which he said showed the need
for constant vigilance.
The report said higher risk unprotected sex among gay men in several
countries in western Europe, such as Germany, appeared to be linked to
the increasing numbers of new HIV diagnoses among that group.
"It's disturbing because it's this sense that we can never let our guard
down as far as prevention, that the epidemic will come creeping back if
there isn't this constant attention being paid to it," De Lay said.
Souce; AFP |
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Bangkok Pride 2003 by
Boxer
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