HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Treatment in the South-East Asia Region

The South-East Asia Region has an estimated 3.6 million people currently living Asia Region with HIV/AIDS, which is the second-largest affected population among all regions after sub-Saharan Africa. The Region is at high risk for a massive spread of the HIV epidemic not only due to the large size of the population and high burden of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) but also due to prevailing risk behaviours and vulnerabilities. Explosive epidemics among injecting drug users (IDUs), sex workers and men who have sex with men (MSM) have occurred in Thailand, Treatment in the South-East Myanmar, India and, more recently, Indonesia and Nepal. In order to combat the HIV epidemic and reach the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010, and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halting and reversing the HIV epidemic trends, there is an urgent need to accelerate the scaling up of HIV prevention, care and treatment services. Specific attention is needed on sustained advocacy for an enabling environment, in particular, for targeting interventions at high-risk populations, HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and providing technical support to strengthen human resource capacity, ensuring sustained financing for HIV programmes and strengthening strategic information systems to monitor and guide the national response to the HIV epidemic.