Professor Myung-Hwan Cho, President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific, said Asia's 8.3... Asia must educate young on

Professor Myung-Hwan Cho, President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific, said Asia's 8.3 million HIV cases were dwarfed by Africa's 23 million, but that the disease was spreading faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world.

''In Asia, preventing the disease is particularly difficult for cultural reasons,'' he told Reuters late on Tuesday at the launch of a major international conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific to be held in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo next year.

Most seriously affected were Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and India, he said, with some five million of India's one billion population now believed to be HIV positive. China officially had some 800,000 with HIV, he said, although the real figure could be much higher.

Reducing the stigma attached to HIV was crucial in encouraging people to come forward and talk about the disease, he said. In many parts of the region, admitting HIV positive status can leave a whole family as social pariahs.

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