Aids awareness
While adult infection rates had dropped in some countries due to increased use of condoms and changes in sexual behaviour, the epidemic continued to grow.
An estimated 40 million people worldwide are currently infected with the HIV virus, which can lead to AIDS.
At least 20 million have died since the condition was first recognized, most of them in Africa.
Meanwhile, several Asian countries marked World Aids Day by handing out free condoms, offering mobile phone games and holding rallies to promote awareness of the disease.
In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh joined student volunteers and ballet dancers to publicize efforts to combat the disease, which the government says is seriously under-reported in the country's regions.
Dozens of HIV-infected women stepped out of the shadows in eastern India to acknowledge they carry the disease and say they should not be shunned.
An estimated 5.1 million people are living with HIV in India -- the most in any single country except South Africa.
Australia announced Thursday it will spend $7.4 million US over five years to help India fight the virus.
Million of condoms were expected to be distributed in Thailand to help raise awareness there, announced Public Health Minister Phinij Jarusombat.
China's government, worried that the spread of AIDS could damage the country's economic development, announced Wednesday that it would aim to keep the number of people infected with HIV to below 1.5 million by 2010.
The announcement came days after UNAIDS warned that up to 10 million could be infected in China by 2010 without more aggressive prevention.
China launched a campaign aimed at some 120 million migrant workers, with Chinese Central Television showing condoms being passed out to workers at a Beijing construction site.
And in South Korea, nearly 10,000 students at 300 high schools in Seoul were given HIV lessons.
"In Korea, people tend to think AIDS is a problem that has nothing to do with them," Cha Hei-sun of World Vision Korea, told the Associated Press.
"People's awareness of the disease is really needed here."
However the mood was more sombre in Africa, where the continent worst hit by the global crisis remembered its dead.
In Kenya, aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres complained it could not effectively treat infected children as "pharmaceutical companies are not making child-friendly versions of their anti-AIDS drugs".
"Half of all children with HIV/AIDS die before the age of two," the agency said in a statement.
Meanwhile the World Health Organization, criticized for failing to meet a target for 3 million people to get access to anti-retroviral drugs by the end of 2005, claimed progress was being made.
Dr Jim Yong Kim, director of the WHO's HIV/Aids department, said at least 1.5 million would get the drugs.
"More than 50 countries have doubled, or more, the numbers of people getting anti-retroviral therapy," he told the BBC Wednesday. - CTV.ca News
posted by Bonyo @ 12:31 PM
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