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World Bank: AIDS Threatens Asia



World Bank: AIDS Threatens Asia 

JOCELYN GECKER 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia 

AP, 25 October 1999.    The AIDS epidemic in Asia could erase the region's
economic 
gains over the last two decades unless governments maintain funding for social 
programs, a World Bank expert warned Monday. 

In Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Vietnam and southern 
China, AIDS had gained a ''strong foothold,'' even before the economic crisis 
struck in 1997, said Martha Ainsworth, a senior World Bank economist. 

The dreaded virus ''threatens to slowly unravel the progress in improving the 
human condition and to eliminate if not reverse the benefits of the economic 
miracle,'' Ainsworth told the 5th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and 
the Pacific, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

The region's two-year economic crisis may have further hurt Asia's fight
against 
AIDS, Ainsworth said. Hundreds of companies went bankrupt and cash-strapped 
governments were forced to slash budgets.

The economic turmoil pushed thousands of families into poverty and many women 
into prostitution. 

''Even before the crisis, political commitment to AIDS prevention in the
region was 
weak,'' Ainsworth said. ''Many policy makers are still in denial.'' 

Before the economic downturn, governments channeled funds into education and 
health care budgets, resulting in higher life expectancies and reduced
poverty. 

''The full impact of the crisis on HIV depends critically on how well
governments 
and households succeeded in maintaining social safety nets,'' said Ainsworth, 
an expert on the effect of AIDS on households. 

Ainsworth said AIDS had already slashed several years off the average life 
expectancies of some Asian countries. 

A U.N report released at the four-day conference estimates that by 2010, the 
overall death rate will be 20 percent higher in Myanmar, or Burma, due to AIDS 
fatalities. In Cambodia and Thailand, it may rise 15 percent because of AIDS. 

The United Nations estimates that 7 million people in Asia are infected
with the 
HIV virus or AIDS.

Speakers at the conference, which ends Wednesday, have urged Asia to act fast 
to curb the epidemic or risk the devastation now faced by Africa, which has 21 
million AIDS-related cases. 

Experts are particularly concerned about the effects of AIDS on Indonesia, the 
world's fourth largest country, where the economic turmoil was compounded 
by political upheaval. It diverted attention and funding from the AIDS
epidemic, 
Ainsworth said. 

She said countries such as Thailand, one of the high-risk areas in Asia, had 
proved that maintaining commitment to AIDS-prevention programs paid dividends. 
HIV cases dropped among prostitutes, men with sexually transmitted diseases
and 
blood donors in Thailand despite the economic crisis, she said. 
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