AIDS Warning Sounded in Asia
New dengue strain ups cases in Malaysia
ASIA'S LOOMING CRISIS
HONG KONG
Asia-Pacific nations must tackle the region's mounting AIDS crisis promptly if they are to avoid the problem escalating into the pandemic proportions of Africa.
The warning comes from Kim Hak Su, executive secretary of the 61-member UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, who urged Asian governments not to "repeat the African mistake."
"If Africa had controlled HIV/AIDS, it would not be in this situation. Twenty percent of the people [in Africa] are sick from HIV/AIDS and there are growing numbers of orphans," he said.
An estimated 30 million people in Africa have the AIDS virus. South Africa has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, with five million of its 43 million citizens carrying the virus. About 360,000 died in 2001.
HIV first emerged in Asia in Thailand in the 1990s but has since spread to other countries, leaving the region at risk of becoming the new global center of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Kim said.
Some 300,000 people are infected with HIV in Cambodia and there are an estimated five million carriers of the virus in India, the worst affected country in the region. Thailand has about 700,000 people infected with HIV. The problem is also spiraling in China where infection is spreading through the use of dirty needles among drug users and the practice of selling blood for money in rural areas, Kim said. China has some one million HIV/AIDS carriers, he said. The UN has warned, however, that the number of Chinese infected with HIV could soar to more than 10 million by the end of the decade.
"If we don't properly control the problem now, then young people will become sufferers... and with young people getting sick, then where will our labor productivity and our workforce come from?" he added.
The UN has said it needs US$10 billion per year to fight AIDS.
AID TO STOP AIDS IN INDIA
NEW DELHI
The international Global Fund has pledged to give US$140 million to India to help combat the spread of the AIDS virus and tuberculosis.
Richard G.A. Feachem, Global Fund executive director, said US$100 million would be used for AIDS projects, while US$34.7 million would help treat tuberculosis. Feachem warned that India was fast on its way to becoming the AIDS capital of the world and said the number of cases was now around five to six million, although the official estimate is around four million.
The Indian government needed to step up its efforts against AIDS by allocating more funds and roping in non-governmental organizations for more work against the disease. India's official estimate of four million HIV/AIDS cases is second only to South Africa's.
A US study recently predicted there would be 20 to 25 million Indians infected with HIV by 2010.
BREAST CANCER UP IN SINGAPORE
SINGAPORE
Breast cancer is on the rise in Singapore, where three women a day find out they have the disease as a result of new lifestyles and higher-fat diets.
Experts say the 1,000 women who are diagnosed with breast cancer annually will grow in number for the next five years before the problem stabilizes.
"Unlike the previous generation, these women grew up in modern Singapore with very different lifestyles from their parents, and a diet rich in saturated fat," said Wang Shih-Chang, head of the radiology department at the National University of Singapore.
More women are childless or having their first kid only after 35, raising risks of breast cancer, according to the report in the Straits Times. Women in their late 40s and 50s are particularly vulnerable.
In the late 1990s, between 200 and 250 women in Singapore died every year from breast cancer. The number rose to 260 in 2000. However, the Singapore incidence of breast cancer at one in 20 women is still relatively low compared to one in eight among American women.
NEW MALAYSIAN DENGUE STRAIN
KUALA LUMPUR
A new strain of the dengue virus has brought about a drastic rise in cases in Malaysia this year with 11 deaths in just two months.
"The new DEN3 virus has caused a lot of people to be affected. Most Malaysians did not have the antibody to the DEN3 strain," health minister Chua Jui Meng said. Chua blamed the increase on public apathy in ensuring clean surroundings and the exceptionally heavy rainy season.
Malaysia recorded a total of 11,394 dengue and hemorrhagic dengue cases last year with 57 deaths. The minister said there have been 3,410 dengue cases with 11 deaths as of February 22.
Despite the trend, Malaysia has not declared a dengue epidemic. Chua said dengue is endemic to the country. "It occurs every year and throughout the year. We are among 100 countries in the Asia-Pacific region that have this problem," Chua said. "They have not declared an epidemic even though some have reported 200,000 cases per year. If we declare a dengue epidemic, we have to do so every year," he said.
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