Comprehensive HIV policies are urgently needed if countries in Asia in the Pacific are to avert a catastrophic spread of HIV, and attendant drastic economic consequences, according to a report published by UNAIDS and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Release of the report is timed to coincide with the opening of the Fifteenth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok this weekend. A separate report by UNAIDS this week highlighted 1 million new HIV infections in Asia last year alone. The Thai government’s policy on drug use has also been criticised recently by Human Rights Watch as undermining the country’s generally good record on HIV prevention.
Entitled Asia’s Pacific Opportunity: Investing to avert an HIV crisis, the UNAIDS/ADB report says that, unless prompt action is taken, there could be an additional 10 million HIV cases in Asia and the Pacific by 2010, with an economic cost of $17.5 billion a year, on top of an increase in individual poverty.
Economic loss due to HIV in Asia and the Pacific was calculated at $3.7 billion in 2001. There are already an estimated 7 million HIV-positive individuals in the region, most having no access to antiretroviral drugs, with several hundred thousand AIDS deaths per year.
In 2003 alone, $1.5 billion was needed to fund comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, and care programmes in the region, but only $200 million was available.
Leadership and money are highlighted in the report as key for countering HIV in Asia and the Pacific. “The role of political leadership is more crucial at this point than ever before,” said Dr Peter Piot of UNAIDS. “Governments in Asia and the Pacific can still avert a massive increase in infections and deaths, limit economic losses and save millions from poverty if they are willing to finance comprehensive AIDS programmes,” he added.
Highlighting the “make or break” situation which now exists in the region, the UNAIDS/ADB report said that immediate action by governments in Asia and the Pacific could “dramatically reduce the number of new infections and the cost of the epidemic to the region.”
Development gains in the region face being undermined by HIV. “Even in Thailand, which has a relatively strong response to HIV/AIDS, analysis suggests that between 2003 and 2015, the pandemic may slow poverty reduction by 38%” said Robert England, UN resident HIV coordinator in Thailand. The consequences for Cambodia could be even worse, slowing poverty reduction by 60% a year.