..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 28 June 2006
Press Release No: G/30/2006

UNESCAP WARNS OF HIV/AIDS DANGER TO ASIA-PACIFIC YOUTH

BANGKOK (United Nations Information Services) – The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) is urgently calling on Asia-Pacific governments to target young people in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“Young people are the hardest hit – half of all new infections have occurred among youth,” warns the report. It says approximately 60 per cent of new HIV infections in Thailand and Vietnam each year are among young people.

Poverty, gender discrimination and lack of access to information and health services have increased youth vulnerability to HIV, the UNESCAP report says. “Focusing HIV prevention on youth offers the greatest hope for containing the spread of HIV in Asia and the Pacific.”

The UNESCAP report says the biggest hurdle to providing effective HIV/AIDS prevention services is lack of cohesive policy. Governments must both coordinate their HIV prevention efforts across all departments, and they must actually implement policies.

An Asia-Pacific regional initiative is critical to stopping the spread of HIV in the region. UNESCAP is urging major pharmaceutical producers to offer life-saving supplies at affordable prices. “Major producers of drugs and supplies, such as China, India and Thailand, could consider the formation of a regional compact to make them available at prices which vulnerable groups, including youth, could afford,” says the UNESCAP report.

The report says the region clearly needs more money to fight the disease. “A comprehensive response to the AIDS pandemic in Asia and the Pacific will require an estimated investment of US$5.1 billion annually by 2007,” it states.

LINK TO REPORT: http://www.unescap.org/pdd/publications/pb/pb_5.pdf

The report is part of a new series of socio-economic policy briefs on hard hitting Asia-Pacific issues by UNESCAP available online.

Check out the new series of socio-economic policy briefs at http://www.unescap.org/pdd/publications/index_pb.asp
for in-depth research and policy support.

For further information please contact:
David Lazarus, Chief
UN Information Services Bangkok
Tel: (66-2) 288-1866
Fax: (66-2) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org

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