Countries in Asia and the Pacific regions have been advised to adopt comprehensive measures against human immunodefiency virus (HIV) to avert a catastrophic increase in infections and drastic economic consequences.
This was revealed in a report, released here on Thursday by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The report, entitled "Asia Pacific's opportunity: investing to avert an HIV/AIDS crisis", suggested that if prompt action was not taken by the end of the decade, 10 million more people from Asia and the Pacific could be infected with the HIV and the economic costs of the virus could rise to 17.5 billion dollars annually.
As a result, millions more people would be thrown into poverty, it said.
According to the ADB communication, received from Bangkok, more than seven million people were already living with the HIV in Asia and the Pacific, with hundreds of thousands of people dying each year.
"Economic losses total 7.3 billion dollars in 2001. The acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids) menace threatens to take a massive human toll in the region and jeopardise efforts to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal, cutting extreme poverty by half by 2015," said ADB Vice-President Geert van der Linden.
It said funds needed to fight the disease, expected to reach at least 5.1 billion dollars per year between 2007 and 2010.
However, in 2003, when the region's countries required 1.5 billion dollars to finance a comprehensive response, only 200 million dollars were available from all public sector sources, governments and donors combined.
The report stressed that the regional leaders must give top priority to ending the enormous - and increasing - shortfall in finances required to build comprehensive prevention and care responses.
In all but a few countries, private households had to bear some of the highest proportion of out-of-pocket spending on health in the world, it said.
"The governments in Asia and the Pacific can still avert a massive increase in infections and deaths, limit economic losses and save millions of people from poverty if they are willing to finance comprehensive AIDS programmes," said Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director.
"The role of political leadership is more critical at this point than ever before," he said.
According to the ADB/UNAIDS report, if Asia Pacific leaders implemented comprehensive prevention and care programmes immediately, they could dramatically reduce the number of new infections and the cost of the epidemic in the region.
"They are at a "make-or-break" stage in the fight against AIDS. Even in Thailand, which has a relatively strong response to HIV/AIDS, analysis suggests that between 2003 and 2015, the pandemic may slow poverty reduction annually by 38 percent, unless appropriate measures are taken," said Robert England, UN Resident Co-ordinator and Chairman of Theme Group on HIV/AIDS in Thailand.
During the same period, poverty reduction could also be slowed down by up to 60 percent a year in Cambodia and by nearly a quarter in India, he said.
The ADB was making a concrete contribution to addressing the need in the region and had already earmarked 140 million dollars from its Asian Development Fund as grant money for combating HIV in Asia and the Pacific, said the report.