CDC: India may face AIDS Catastrophe

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CDC: China, India May Face AIDS Catastrophe

Thu Jul 3,11:16 AM ET.SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China, India and Cambodia

could face an AIDS " catastrophe " as HIV spreads deeper into parts of

Asia where health controls are weak, the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

" In some countries, for example, Cambodia, or in what we believe in

China and India, the public health measures have yet to take hold,

and the epidemic really is in that phase of scaling up very, very

quickly, " said CDC director Dr. Gerberding.

" It looks like Africa did a decade or so ago, " she told a briefing in

Singapore.

China, the world's most populous nation, estimates that around 1

million of its people have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS -- a

figure the United Nations says could soar to 10 million by the end of

the decade.

India, with the world's second-biggest population, has at least 4

million sufferers. In Cambodia, an estimated 158,000 people, or 2.6

percent of adults in the war-scarred nation, are HIV-positive.

" If we don't intervene in those environments we will have a

catastrophe of a very, very profound increase in the number of

cases, " said Gerberding.

The CDC director is meeting Asian health officials to discuss

technical support in detecting emerging infectious disease in the

aftermath of deadly outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome

(SARS) in China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The United Nations agency UNAIDS says 42 million people are infected

with HIV worldwide -- 29.4 million of them in Africa. It has killed

25 million worldwide.

The United Nations forecasts that by 2010, 45 million more will be

infected if the pandemic continues at its current pace, and 70

million will have died by 2020.