"There is no doubt that because of their vast size and populations, they face
enormous challenges in translating their political commitments into action," he
said.
Medical experts warn that without drastic preventive measures by the Chinese
government, more than 10 million Chinese could be infected by 2010.
Currently, Beijing estimates 840,000 people are HIV positive and another 80,000
have AIDS. Roughly 150,000 people are believed to have died of AIDS in China.
Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, has praised China's leadership for
recognizing the severity of the problem, saying the political will has
intensified of late.
Over the past few months, China has said it is making a major commitment to
expand medical treatment of HIV/AIDS patients and is currently providing
antiretroviral medicine, which can slow the spread of the virus, to more than
12,000 people.
In India, the epidemic continues to worsen. As of 2004, there were 5.1 million
people with HIV/AIDS, and the Indian government has acknowledged the disease is
moving from high-risk groups to the general population, and from urban to rural
areas.
"India's efforts to combat the problem face severe challenges. These include
the migration of 180 million people per year, both within a state and to other
states, the fact that 26 percent of the population is below the poverty line,
sex education is still considered taboo and the poor social status of women,"
said S.Y. Quraishi, director general of India's National AIDS Control
Organization.
Correspondingly, the financial costs of treatment in not only China and India
but worldwide continues to rise.
Kim said UNAIDS estimates that at least an additional $18 billion above what is
currently pledged by donor nations will be needed to fight the epidemic around
the world over the next three years.
But just as important as the amount of money is how it is spent. Many projects
dealing with HIV/AIDS in a single country are small and operate independently
of each other, which, Kim said, was understandable years ago when the crisis
emerged.
"In our rush to get things started, we have developed many small projects with
a variety of (fund sources). We must now move from a project approach to a
program approach in which the national AIDS authority is in charge of
determining what training, treatment, prevention and monitoring protocols will
be accepted," he said.
"Without such standardization, increasing chaos could eventually threaten the
very existence of national programs."
