The United Nations has warned India, China and other Asian countries that they have to race to prevent AIDS from leaping out of localised pools of infection and becoming an uncontrollable threat. In its latest report it states that, "The window of opportunity for bringing the HIV/AIDS epidemic under control is narrowing rapidly in Asia." The report further states that without urgent steps the number of infected Asians would be more than double within five years.

The report, published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) ahead of the World AIDS Day on December 1 is part of a twice-a-year update on the global crisis. It estimated that by the end of the year, 42 million people, two million more than in 2001, would be living with the HIV or the disease it causes, AIDS.

The UN agencies pleaded with China and India, which together account for more than a third of the world's six billion people, not to be complacent.

These countries were experiencing "serious localised epidemics" in sections of the community, such as commercial sex workers and intravenous drug addicts, but which had the potential to threaten "many millions of people."

With the exception of Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand, the Asia-Pacific region had a "comparatively low" rate of infection but the report warned that this might not last much longer.

"In several countries, low national prevalence conceals serious, localised epidemics. There is a vital need to expand activities that focus on people at most risk of infection, as well as a need for more extensive HIV/AIDS programmes that reach the general population," the report reads.

The region, according to the report has around 7.2 million infected people, almost one million more than last year. About 2.1 million of them are young people aged 15-24 years.

The report gave this profile of the situation in India: "India's national adult HIV prevalence rate of less than one per cent offers little indication of the serious situation it faces."

Nearly four million people had HIV at the end of 2001, the second-highest figure in the world after South Africa. Detected HIV prevalence among pregnant women was higher than one per cent in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland and Tamil Nadu.

Countrywide, awareness of HIV/AIDS was high. Roughly three-quarters of adult Indians were aware about safe sex. But, in general, awareness and knowledge of HIV/AIDS remain weak in rural areas and among women.