Paris – ICOS, an international drug policy think tank, warned that an HIV pandemic would be unavoidable if a more pragmatic approach to address the link between drug use and HIV is not taken.

One in every four new HIV infections now takes place in Asia. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2005 World Drug Report, injecting drug use causes 30% to 80% of HIV/AIDS infection in the region.

The Paris-based ICOS urged the 3,000 international experts and activists gathered in Kobe for the Seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific: Bridging Science and Community to promote simple health-based drug policies like needle exchange which are both successful in curbing the spread of HIV and cost effective.

“Simple policy measures such as needle exchange could avoid an AIDS pandemic in Asia, but these are not being implemented for purely political reasons,” said Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of ICOS.

The think tank said that the current drug policy model is a major obstacle to reducing the growing instances of HIV/AIDS infection. The “War on Drugs” approach does not include realistic – and often very simple and cheap – preventive public health measures that could save millions of lives.

The United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report, released ahead of the Congress on AIDS, warns that if nothing is done, 12 million people could be infected by 2010. Quick action now could prevent 6 million new infections.

“The spread of HIV is about public health, not politics,” said Emmanuel Reinert. “Governments must adopt public health measures for injecting drug users.”

Latest estimates from the United Nations show that 39 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in the world. 20%, or 8.2 million people, are in Asia, of which 5.1 million are in India.

In China, where there are 840,000 declared cases of infection, there has been an annual increase of 30% in the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate from 1995 to 2000, and an increase of 122% in 2003. It is estimated that 80,000 Chinese live with full-blown AIDS. Experts predict that by 2010 there could be more than 10 million people infected with HIV in China.

According to the UNODC report, the sharing of infected drug equipment is the most common mode of transmission in Asia. Between 84% to 92% of injecting drug users in Asia are infected with HIV. In 2003, HIV prevention programmes reached only 5% of injecting drug users.

“These extremely alarming figures are proof that the current approach is not working. It fails to contain, let alone reduce, the spread of HIV,” Reinert said. “Global drug policy as it stands today is a major threat to world health. The lack of UN-endorsement for simple but vital public health policies is contributing to governments not adopting such measures to impede further spread of the disease. The situation in Asia is already at crisis levels. This AIDS Congress is an opportunity to launch an urgently-needed new approach that will both address and act upon the reality of injecting drug use and HIV/AIDS if we are to avoid a health catastrophe in Asia.”