‘Window of Opportunity’ for Addressing AIDS in Asia Closing, Opinion Piece Says

The "window of opportunity" for addressing HIV/AIDS in Asia is "still open, but not for long," Daniel Sneider, a foreign affairs columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, writes in a Detroit Free Press opinion piece. However, "wishful thinking has been the norm" on the continent, with India and China only recently acknowledging their respective epidemics, Sneider says. Although "there seems to be a basis for complacency" in that HIV prevalence in the region "doesn't come close" to that of countries in Africa, the "sheer size of Asian populations dramatically changes those calculations," Sneider says. For example, HIV prevalence in India is still less than 1%, but that prevalence translates into five million people -- likely making India the country with the largest number of HIV cases in the world, according to Sneider. The region should spend more money on HIV/AIDS prevention and should target commercial sex workers and their clients in prevention programs, Sneider says, concluding, "If we fail to act, the victims will be measured not in the millions but in the tens of millions" (Sneider, Detroit Free Press, 8/2).