Act Now: Asia-Pacific Leaders Respond to HIV/AIDS

Asia-Pacific countries have reached a critical point in their response to HIV/AIDS. Until now, levels of HIV infection in most countries have remained relatively low and the response of most governments has been similarly low-key. The region’s HIV epidemics, however, are accelerating. A million Asian and Pacific people became infected with HIV last year and more than half a million people died of AIDS. The figures will be higher in 2004.

How much worse this appalling toll becomes will depend largely on what national leaders do now. At this stage, when epidemics are still concentrated in certain population groups and geographic areas, the opportunity still exists to avert a greater disaster.