From: ngoh@byron.u.washington.edu (Ngo Manh Hung)
Subject: AIDS EPIDEMIC FEARED IN ASIA
Reply-To: ngoh@byron.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 18:14:32 GMT

(Posted without permission)

AIDS WILL BE SEEN AS ASIA'S DISEASE

By Philip Shenon
New York Times

Bangkok, Thailand - Aids came relatively late to most of Asia, but it 
is now spreading so rapidly - and so randomly - that scientists are 
convinced that it will kill more people on this continent than on any 
other.
  Conservative estimates suggest that by the end of the decade,the AIDS
virus will infect more than one million Asians each year, more than the 
rest of the world combined.
  Some researchers fear that the infection rate in Asia will be closer to
three or four million a year, and that tens of millions of Asians will be 
infected by the virus by the year 2000.
  It is a plague, they say, that threatens some Asia's miracle economies,
and could condemn other, less fortunate Asian nations to another generation
of grinding poverty, as their governments struggle to care for millions of
people who are now destined to become ill and die.
  The world Health Organization warned in a report that HIV, the virus that 
causes AIDS, may be spreading in some Asian nations at a percentage rate 
close to that found in early 1980s across sub-Saharan Africa.
  In Asia, AIDS is usually spread by Asian-to Asian heterosexual contact. 
According the World Health Organization, more than three-quarters of all
HIV infections now develop from heterosexual encounters. The other forms 
important of transmission, it says, are the sharing of dirty needles among
intravenous drug users and sex between men.
  Researchers say that as Asians been dying by the millions, AIDS will soon
lose its reputation among many people on the continent as a scourge affecting
only foreign places and people - Africa, the Caribbean, homosexual men and
intravenous drug users in the United States.
  "Nobody will be talking about AIDS as the African disease or as a gay 
disease," said Don L. Douglas of the Program for Appropriated Technology in
Health, an American nonprofit group that leads AIDS education projects 
across Asia. "In 10 year's time, it will be seen as Asia's disease.
  What discourages and infuriates many AIDS specialists is that Asian 
governments, with the notable exception of the Thai government and a few others,
are doing little to control the epidemic.
  "The situation in Asia countries is far worse then most governments will 
admit," said Mechai Viravydia, who until last month ran the Thai government's
aggressive anti_AIDS program and is know to millions of Thais as "Mr. Condom"
because of his campaigns to promote condom use to stop AIDS. Some governments,
he said, are "lying about the problem" - they have evidence or at least a
strong suspicion that AIDS is spreading rapidly across the continent, but
will not warn the public. 
  There is no one cause for their reticence. Some governments in Asia seem
to fear they will frighten away investment and tourists by publicizing the 
AIDS thread. Others worry that an open discussion of how AIDS is spread will
offend local standards of morality and taste; still others seem blind to how
serious the problem might be...

  Well, the article is kind of long, my fingers are getting tired, you know.
So, this is the statistics taken out from the article:

The Thai government estimates that 200,000 - 400,000 Thais are infected w/ AIDS.
That's about 6 percent of the entire population.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 1 million people in India
are infected with AIDS.
"In some brothels in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, 70 percent of 
prostitutes carry the virus, and many of the prostitutes routinely see 10 
to 20 men a day."
"In VIETNAM, Cambodia, and Myanma, government anti-AIDS programs are small
and INEFFECTIVE."
"The Thai government is also one of a few in Asia to try to determine how
its economy will be affected by the AIDS crisis. Survey results released 
last March showed that as much as $9 billion, the equivalent to one-seventh
of Thailand's gross national product, would be lost to the Thai economy by
the end of the century as young, productive laborers grow ill and seek medical
treatment at government expense."
"The AIDS crisis has so far not scared off tens of thousands of Japanese men
who each year join "SEX TOURS", which taken the to the brothels of Thailand
and other SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS."
"Don't worry about AIDS", said one of the prostitutes, a 19-year old who gave
her name as Cat. "most of our clients are Asians, and AIDS is a disease of
your foreigners. We Asian do not have to worry."





  




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