New Delhi: A new study shows that nearly five million people are living with HIV in Asia and 440,000 people die of AIDS each year.

The study which was conducted by the Commission on AIDS in Asia, led by Prime Minister's Economic Advisor C Rangarajan, further goes on to say that if the current rate of transmission continues, an additional eight million people will become newly infected by 2020.

The report notes that while recognising that epidemics vary considerably from country to country across Asia, the AIDS epidemics centre mainly around behaviours of unprotected paid sex, use of contaminated needles and syringes by people who inject drugs, and unprotected sex between men.

In Asia, the HIV epidemic is mainly driven by men who go for paid sex. Their number is estimated to be about 75 million in Asia and about 10 million women sell sex to these men.

However, the further transmission of the virus is limited by the sexual behaviour of women in an Asian context who generally do not have concurrent sexual partners.

So, by pragmatically focusing prevention programmes to the sex trade and on drug use, the Commission suggests a considerable impact could be made by governments in halting and reversing the number of new infections across this region.

It recommended that high-impact interventions, such as HIV prevention programmes focused on key populations and anti-retroviral treatment, should constitute the core of the HIV response across Asia.
Source : PTI