Asian tsunami has raised AIDS risk – United Nations
By Elaine Lies
KOBE, Japan (Reuters) – The devastating tsunami that struck
Asia last year has left several countries that were already
vulnerable to AIDS at even greater risk of the deadly disease,
United Nations officials said on Monday.
One in four new infections occurs in Asia, home to more
than half the world’s people, and 1,500 in the region die from
the disease each day. Another 12 million could be infected over
the next five years if prevention programs are not stepped up.
Deadly waves caused by the Dec. 26 earthquake slammed into
shores around the Indian Ocean, leaving 232,000 dead or missing
and making millions homeless, many of them under conditions
ripe for spreading HIV/AIDS.
“We’re extremely concerned about the disaster and the
increased risk of HIV and AIDS,” said Jan Leno, from the UNAIDS
secretariat, at a session of an international conference on
AIDS in the Asia-Pacific held in the western Japanese city of
Kobe.
She said that while HIV rates had not yet been seen to rise
in any of the worst-hit regions, recent surveys had shown an
increase in both pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
The United Nations estimates 8.2 million people are
infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Asia,
about 5.1 million of them in India. Worldwide, about 39 million
people have HIV/AIDS, including 25 million in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Officials and aid workers said the risk of AIDS in areas
struck by the tsunami had increased due to the breakdown in
basic services and health-care systems, which left many people
without access to condoms.
A massive influx of military personnel and relief workers
to the stricken areas as well as crowded, stressful living
conditions that lead many men to seek out sex workers for
relief have also raised the chance that HIV may spread.
“Our men all want sex. But how can I have sex when I have
lost two children?” one woman in a tsunami-hit area of Sri
Lanka told Kiran Bhatia, a U.N. regional adviser.
One aid worker said the areas in southern Thailand hit
hardest by the tsunami had high levels of HIV/AIDS before the
disaster, and funds earmarked for fighting the disease had been
diverted to relief efforts.
J.V.R. Prasada Rao, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support
Team in Bangkok, said it was unfortunate but inevitable that
many countries concentrated on short-term projects in a crisis.
“It is still difficult for all involved in relief efforts
to see why such a long-term issue as AIDS must be dealt with
immediately,” he said in a statement.
“But there is increased understanding in those areas
devastated by the tsunami that any relief effort must also
include AIDS.”