May be there has been noted a significant growth in access to HIV treatment in the year of 2006. However, most of the Asian countries still have a long way to go before cheering up as a report by World health organization reveals that only 19 per cent of Asians who need AIDS drugs receive them.
This revelation really points to a bad portent, especially for the ongoing war against HIV/AIDS because according to an estimate, there are 7.8 million people living with HIV out of the world’s total of nearly 40 million cases, alone in the east, south and southeast Asia.
Here it is worth mentioning that India is one of the countries with multi-billion-dollar AIDS prevention program. However, it is quite unfortunate that in spite of this high-profile AIDS prevention drive; hardly three per cent of the HIV-positive pregnant women in India have access to drugs that are used for prevention of viral transmission from mother to child in 2005. Moreover, countries like India, which in the recent years, has emerged on the world-map due to her march towards economic progress is having 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS.
This report about Asian countries may blur the goal that aspires for achieving the target of universal access to comprehensive prevention programs by 2010 because achieving this goal by keeping in view the report about Asian countries, seems to be a tough target. As the report states:
Universal access by 2010 will require a steep increase in the number of people starting treatment every year.
More worrying is the fact that performance shown by Asian countries, in this regard, is surprisingly nastiest than many Caribbean and Latin American countries, as the figures show that that overall treatment coverage in these Caribbean and Latin American countries is 72 per cent. And unfortunately, this difference is there despite the fact that economically these Caribbean and Latin American countries are weaker than many Asian countries.
After pondering over the HIV/AIDS situation, prevailing in Asia, it could be said that merely erection of multi-billion-dollar AIDS prevention program doesn’t ensure complete fight against HIV/AIDS, so long as they carry several loopholes. Therefore, such plans need to be revamped; otherwise, they would just prove like mammoth-sized ships having rips.
