Record Numbers Infected With HIV
U.N. Cites Rapid Rise In Asia and E. Europe
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
BANGKOK, July 6 -- The global AIDS epidemic spread at an alarming pace last year with a record 4.8 million new infections, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday, which expressed concern that the virus is spreading quickly in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Issued in advance of the 15th International AIDS Conference, which opens Sunday in Bangkok, the report said that governments were not doing enough to prevent the spread of AIDS. Only one in five people worldwide have access to prevention programs, it said.
Sub-Saharan Africa continued to have the world's highest incidence of AIDS, the report said. But Eastern Europe and Central Asia are suffering from the fastest rate of growth in HIV infections, U.N. officials said. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
In Asia, prevention has been inadequate "partly because of stigma and discrimination," the report said. There were success stories in Thailand and Cambodia, where prevention programs deal more openly with high-risk behavior, such as intravenous drug use and prostitution, said the U.N. repor