Just a few years ago, Mala was the quintessential middle-class Indian housewife. She cooked, cleaned and looked after her two small children.

Last year, her life took a tragic turn: her husband died of AIDS, she was diagnosed HIV-positive and her mother-in-law took her children away from her, saying they too would get the disease.

"When friends dropped in for a visit she would introduce me saying, 'She is my son's widow. She has AIDS'," said Mala.

Until now, Asia has been more successful in holding the AIDS virus at bay than Africa, where the disease has killed about 12 million people and many more carry the HIV virus.

But with millions like Mala trapped in a web of misconceptions, myths and prejudice, AIDS is now threatening to engulf many of Asia's poverty-stricken countries.

According to a new UNAIDS report, only three countries in Asia -- Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand -- have HIV infection rates exceeding one percent among 15 to 49-year-olds.

But the low rates conceal huge numbers of affected people.

In India, for instance, 3.7 million are infected, more than in any other country except South Africa. In China, an estimated 500,000 people, mainly drug users, live with HIV/AIDS.

Gordon Alexander, senior country programme adviser for UNAIDS in India, estimates that the number hit by the scourge in Asia will climb to about eight million over the next five years from about six million.

"We've got a serious epidemic in Asia or at least in South Asia," he said.

In India the disease is spreading from traditionally high-risk groups such as commercial sex workers, drug users and homosexuals to large rural swathes and urban areas.

Although the disease is concentrated in southern India, the western state of Maharashtra and the northeast, rural areas in other parts of the country are highly vulnerable because of large-scale migration and repressive attitudes towards women.

"The dimensions of the AIDS epidemic in India are different from others because here AIDS isn't a health issue but a development problem," said Neelam Kapoor, joint director of the government's National Aids Control Organisation.

India is not alone. In Thailand, where a thriving sex industry has contributed significantly to the virus, about one million of the country's 60 million people are HIV infected.

"Thailand's infection rate is one of the worst in Asia, with one in every 60 people infected," said Jon Ungphakorn, director of the AIDS Access Foundation and a Thai senator.

In many countries like India, China and Singapore, the battle against HIV is a social and cultural one against the social stigma attached to the disease.

Last year, China -- where health experts say there are about 800,000 HIV carriers -- broke a long-standing taboo against public discussion of sexual health and launched a nationwide media campaign to curb the spread of HIV through unsafe sex.

The country has also launched pilot projects, among them a drive to place condom vending machines in bars, karaoke halls and universities, but these have been stymied by conservative officials who believe the problem is largely a foreign one.

Last December, China's first-ever condom advertisement featuring a cartoon prophylactic fighting off HIV was banned by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce because it was thought to be promoting sex products illegally.

In Singapore, more than 3,000 foreigners and about 1,200 Singaporeans have been officially reported to have been infected with the AIDS virus since 1985.

But Brenton Wong, honorary secretary of Singapore's Action For AIDS, says the actual HIV incidence in the city state of 3.9 million people is at least eight times higher than official data.

"Stigmatisation and denial is still very, very common so people are afraid to get tested and many times won't even tell their families if they test positive," said Wong.

Cultural taboos such as public discussion about sex and condoms remain the biggest difficulties for anti-AIDS campaigners in communist-run Vietnam, where the number of people detected with HIV has increased by 15-20 percent annually.

According to official reports, nearly 20,000 have been tested HIV positive in Vietnam, but official media reported this month that the actual number of people with the virus is expected to reach 135,000-160,000 by the end of 2000.

In the Philippines, where health department officials estimate the number of people afflicted with the HIV virus is between 35,000 to 40,000, opposition to condom use by the powerful Roman Catholic Church has been a big hindrance.

Josie de la Cruz, a project officer with the AIDS Society of the Philippines says "many people, although aware of the danger, maintain an 'it won't be me' attitude..."

Thailand is the one success story in Asia where a government-sponsored condom promotion campaign and a drive to change sexual behaviour have helped control the spread of HIV.

"During the last four to five years we have noticed some decrease of prevalence of HIV among pregnant women, army conscripts and commercial sex workers," said Anupong Chitwaraporn, director of the AIDS division at the Ministry of Public Health.

"If there are no programme changes, by 2005 we should see a drop of new cases to about 17,000-20,000 each year," he added.

Prejudice against AIDS is widespread in Japan, again forcing many to conceal their condition, and it is legal to test for HIV without the consent of the people whose blood is being tested.

The number of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in Japan was a relatively low 6,912 as of October 31, 1999. But in the first half of 1999 the number of new AIDS cases made its sharpest ever increase over a six-month period, with 145 new ones reported.

In what could be a sign of changing attitudes, on June 12 a court ruled that the dismissal of an HIV-positive Japanese-Brazilian man from his job following an HIV test conducted without his knowledge was illegal.

Such victories are more the exception than the rule.

And, as the AIDS virus spreads across Asia, the U.N. report warns: "It may be just a matter of time before infections reach a critical level...Certainly there is no room for complacency."

　　(From China Daily)