HEALTH : U.N. Panel Warns Asia on AIDS

Asian countries should not be lulled into a false sense of security by low AIDS statistics, as there are an estimated 500,000 carriers of the virus in the region, a U.N. organization said today.

Only 2,000 of the world’s 215,000 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome were reported in Asia as of February, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific said in a news release.

However, the disease could spread rapidly because many more people in Asia, estimated to number 500,000, have been infected with the AIDS virus, it said.

“The small number of AIDS cases in the region should not be grounds for optimism. Claims by some countries that they had no cases were contrary to other available evidence,” the release quoted a commission paper as saying.