The Aids epidemic is spreading unchecked throughout parts of Asia with more people infected with HIV in the region during 2003 than ever before, according to a United Nations report published yesterday.

Sharp increases in HIV infections were reported in China, Indonesia and Vietnam with the number of Asians having the AIDS-causing virus rising to an estimated 7.4 million, the 2004 Report on the global Aids epidemic said.

In Bangladesh despite currently low HIV rates, a rise in drug use in some areas, a highly active com-

mercial sex trade and the widespread shunning of birth control threatens a spike in infections.

Surveys there showed fewer than 20 percent of married women and 33 percent of married men had heard of Aids.

Record sums are being spent on research and educating the public but more than 20 years since the world's first Aids diagnosis in 1981, huge swathes of the region's population remain ignorant about the disease and how to protect themselves.

Aids experts warn the fastgrowing epidemic in Asia, with a record 1.1 million new HIV infec-

tions last year, has huge implications since the continent is home to 60 percent of the world's population.

Epidemics are particularly serious in the Southeast Asian nations of Myanmar, Thailand and in Cambodia where three percent of the population is infected with HIV -the highest proportion in Asia.

Despite some successes in reversing the upward trend of cases, the United Nations warns that many national leaders remain in denial about the impact of Aids on their people. While in many countries the response of the authorities is

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improving, it falls well short of what is needed, the report said.

Prevention work is also failing for those on the margins of society who need it most -- notably homosexuals, migrants and drug users -- who are systematically ignored in some of Asia's most conservative societies.

Women, who account for 28 percent of all infections in the region, also face particular difficulties in parts of Asia where seeking birth control or treatment can result in social alien-

ation.

"New epidemics appear to be advancing unchecked... notably Eastern Europe and Asia - regions that are experiencing the fastest-growing epidemics in the world," said the report.

While sub-Saharan Africa remains the worst-hit place in the world, UN experts predicted that Asia would need 28 percent of an estimated 20 billion dollar budget required by 2007 for prevention and care. Currently, less than five billion dollars is spent worldwide.

China alone has an estimated 840,000 people living with HIV but the report warns that 10 million people may be infected by 2010 unless effective action is taken since it has spread across the country.

In India, which at 5.1 million has the largest number of people outside of South Africa living with HIV, a study three years ago found that a quarter of the population had never even heard ofAIDS.

Although most infections were through sexual activity, injecting drug use in the north-east of the country bordering Myanmar and close to the notorious Golden Triangle drug producing area saw HIV infection rates of up to 75 percent.

Elsewhere in south Asia "behavioural information suggests that conditions are ripe for HIV to spread," according to the report.