Is China and India the "Next" Africa for AIDS?

Largely absent from the AIDS crisis from the beginning, China and India seem to be at risk for becoming the next Africa in terms of infection and spread. So far the infection rate in both countries is on the rise, and looks as if its going to jump top the general population from the traditional high risk groups. One group has predicted 10,000,000 in china alone by 2010, up from its current 850,000. Thats quite a large spike.

India is in much worse shape with 5-8 million of which 60% also have TB. Experts predict that by 2010, thier AIDS population could be in the 25 million range. If they do not get a handle and impliment Public Health measures, who knows how bad things could get.

LONDON (AFP) - China and India are at a crucial point in the fight against AIDS (news - web sites) as the disease is poised to leap out of marginal infected groups and enter the mainstream population, experts said.

By the end of 2003, China had some 850,000 people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV (news - web sites)) or AIDS, Shao Yiming, chief expert at China's National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, told a conference.

China's prevalence rate today is very small compared with its population of 1.2 billion, but the epidemic is so complex and fast-moving that "we are projecting that by 2010, there could be 10 million cases," he said.

"We are at a critical stage in which the epidemic could spread from high-risk groups to the general population," Shao warned.

The first cases of HIV in China surfaced in the late 1980s among injecting drug users in the southwestern province of Yunnan, an inflow for narcotics from the Golden Triangle region, he said.

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