UNESCO boss sounds alarm on AIDS in south Asia

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2004

LIVINGSTONE, Zambia (AFP) — UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura sounded an alarm on the increase of AIDS in South Asia, saying it was rising "very rapidly" there.

He was speaking in Livingstone, Zambia, on the eve of a conference on the pandemic in the Victoria Falls resort between UN agencies and southern African ministers.

As in Africa, Matsuura said, AIDS in South Asia was spreading primarily through "heterogeneous sex" between men and women, but South Asia had the advantage of stronger infrastructure in health services and education.

"In South Asia," he told AFP in an interview, "the trend is upward -- it is rising very rapidly.

"Some countries want to hide its extent," he said, but some South Asian leaders, such as those in Thailand, were...