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'People with AIDS deserve to die because they are immoral. Only pimps, commercial sex workers and truck drivers get AIDS, not me".

This common mis conception was revealed in the speech given by the famous Indian film actress Shabana Azmi at the opening ceremony of ICAAP, the largest Asia-Pacific Congress on AIDS, held from October 5th to 7th in Melbourne, Australia where more than 3,000 participants including activists, care givers, NGO personnel and researchers and the members of the medical community were assembled.

The Asia-Pacific region is the world's largest and most diverse in that of geography, population, but only about twenty per cent of the estimated global total of HIV infection. In 2000 there were an estimated 780,000 new infections in South and South East Asia, and 130,000 new infections in East Asia and the Pacific.

With the exceptions of Austria, New Zealand, Cambodia and Thailand , the regions HIV epidemic continues to grow some explosively. HIV prevalence reported among sex workers in Mumbai rose from one per cent to over fifty per cent between 1987 and 1993. Now it is estimated to be a seventy per cent rate. The region has serious behavioural vulnerabilities to HIV AIDS: rapid economic growth, high mobile populations and the demand for sex workers and so on.

It is also indicated at the Congress that all throughout the region, the government and the non-governmental communities are reluctant or refuse to acknowledge the existence of sex workers, injecting drug-users, homosexual behaviour and trans-gender people. They prohibit or discourage discussion about these issues in many societies.

What according to the participants in the Congress was also significant is the overwhelming majority of individuals in the region who do not have an access to information, skills, tools and the supportive environment needed to prevent HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections.

It was revealed that in most countries in the region, HIV epidemic have not yet spread beyond specific vulnerable population groups. However, population mobility and mixing within and between countries occur on a scale larger that at any other time in human history, e.g. tens of millions of people moving within China alone and many others within and from India, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. Such larger-scale population movement, immigration and mixing contribute to the spread of HIV.

It was strongly recommended here that the political commitment and leadership from the countries in the region are urgently needed. The Asia-Pacific region still continues to downplay the problem refusing to allocate resources there in order to put priority to military, environmental, infrastructure construction and such other projects. In many of our countries discussions have to be taken for policy to be enacted and programs to be planned and implemented.

In addition apart from commitment from the highest levels of government support must also come from all other levels. Such commitment and support must be reflected in the degree of public resources devoted to HIV/AIDS.

It was observed that many government in the region underfund health and other social sectors, and some rely wholly on International Development Assistance to fund AIDS programs.

The private sector, civil society and community groups also could and should demonstrate commitment and leadership in the response to AIDS. Such groups cannot sit by waiting for governments. They must continue to take action and mobilise the prevention and care with greater scale than ever before.

As a gay-activist also involved in AIDS prevention what moved me most at the Congress was, the commitment, demonstrated here in by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the region.

Row Kavi from the HUMSAFAR TRUST, Mumbai, India gave a broad overview of the pandemic in Asia where he said HIV prevalence was so high in many Asian countries that it was a heathen genocide of sexual minorities. Men having sex with men had infection rates of over 25 per cent in Mumbai metro, said Row Kavi and it "could not be any different in many other parts of Asia", he added.

As a co-founder and the moderator of the regions largest gay-lesbian AIDS prevention network - AP Rainbow, the most fruitful aspect of my participation at ICAAP was to join hands with members who assembled there, where we discussed issues such as reaffirming our commitment in all levels, i.e. local, regional and International of AIDS prevention activities.

Another significant aspect APT for mentioning herein was the call to include people living with the HIV/AIDS and members of vulnerable population, program development and implantations. As one of the facilitators indicated leaders and institutions must re-examine their interpretations of religious texts in view of their primary obligation to preserve and protect human life, and to ensure the most vulnerable members of society are not stigmatised for their behaviour and identity".

"With political commitment and leadership and the mobilization of all sectors of society, we in the Asia-Pacific region can hope one day to face down HIV/AIDS for our communities, our nations and for all humanity", was he concluding statement of the Sixth ICAAP.

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