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Asia marks World AIDS Day
By Daniel Lovering
December 1, 2004
Bangkok - Activists, entertainers and health workers gathered across Asia to
mark World AIDS Day on Wednesday amid warnings that the risk of catching the
disease is rising for women and girls.
National infection rates remain lower in Asia than in other parts of the world
- particularly Africa. But the large populations of many countries in the
region mean vast numbers of people are stricken. The epidemic has claimed about
540,000 lives in Asia so far this year.
In China, President Hu Jintao shook hands with AIDS patients during a highly
publicized hospital visit aimed at highlighting Beijing's commitment to
fighting the pandemic in the world's most populous country.
China has recently launched efforts to combat the spread of the disease after
years of denying AIDS was a problem.
Health officials, meanwhile, have stressed that women are the most vulnerable.
Some 47 percent of the 45 million people worldwide infected with HIV are
female, and women in East Asia are contracting the disease at a faster rate
than men, often because men who visit prostitutes are increasingly passing on
the virus to their wives, the United Nations warned last week.
"Gender inequalities make it difficult for Asian women to negotiate safer sex
in a relationship," the Bangkok-based Asia Pacific Network of People Living
with HIV/AIDS quoted an Indian woman with the disease as saying.
Health workers, patients, actors and pop singers in Thailand - among the
countries hardest hit by the disease in Southeast Asia - planned to lead a
parade through the streets of the capital, Bangkok.
About 600,000 people have died of AIDS in Thailand, and there are about 572,000
people living with the disease. Thai health authorities are providing free
generic anti-retroviral drugs to about 50,000 people.
In the Philippines, where infection rates remain low, gay men strutted before
the press Tuesday to promote HIV testing on the U.N.-sponsored day of
commemoration. One man wore shorts adorned with multicolored condoms
A popular nightclub in Tokyo, meanwhile, kicked off an AIDS awareness campaign
Wednesday with plans for an annual concert to benefit AIDS activist groups and
the distribution of 20,000 pamphlets and condoms.
In Taiwan, AIDS campaigners said the image of people living with the disease
had to change, praising the media for helping to publicize the plight of
infected people but accusing them of reinforcing negative stereotypes.
"AIDS patients are often represented as promiscuous and reckless," AIDS
activist Lin Yi-huei said, referring to media coverage of police drug raids on
gay parties.
Malaysia's AIDS situation was worsening because of lack of awareness about the
dangers of unprotected sex and intravenous drug use, warned Marina Mahathir,
president of the nongovernment Malaysian AIDS Council, in an editorial
published Wednesday in The Star newspaper.
According to government statistics, 58,012 people were HIV-positive at the end
of 2003.
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