Asia-Pacific must do more to tackle gay AIDS crisis: group

BEIJING (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific countries are not doing enough to tackle a growing AIDS crisis among men who have sex with men, hampered by social stigma and discriminatory laws, according to an advocacy group.

Though in some countries such as China the government is now actively involved in reaching out to this community, in others, including Malaysia and India, progress has been much slower, said the Asia-Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health.

It is an "almost unrecognized but ever-growing crisis that many governments in the region are only just beginning to grapple with", the group said in a statement ahead of World AIDS Day on Saturday.

HIV infection rates in some Asia cities in the men who have sex with men (MSM) community are estimated to be as high as 32 percent, added the group, a coalition of U.N. bodies, governments and non-governmental organizations.

"One of the main reasons is stigma around engaging in MSM behavior, and also identifying as gay, transgender and so on in Asia," Edmund Settle, HIV/AIDS Programme Manager for the UNDP in China, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

That stigma can range from lack of visibility to homophobic violence in places like Nepal.

"There's also a legislative reason. In a lot of post-colonial countries such as India and Malaysia, engaging in male-to-male sex is illegal, punishable by long prison sentences. So it's very difficult to talk openly about male-to-male sex if it's illegal," he added.

Another problem is lack of data, though research has now started to take place, and lack of focus on the community in HIV/AIDS prevention work.

"Despite MSM having higher infection rates than the general adult population, the financial investment for HIV prevention, care and support services for this marginalized group across the Asia-Pacific is abysmally low in national HIV and AIDS programme planning, usually between 0 and 4 percent," group chairperson Shivananda Khan said in the statement.

"Less than one in 10 MSM in the region have access to any sort of HIV services, woefully short of the six in 10 that UNAIDS describes as minimal coverage necessary for high-risk groups," Khan added.

"Is it any surprise then that we really don't have a clear picture of the true extent of the HIV crisis affecting men who have sex with men?"

Knowledge of safe sex can be pitifully low.

In China, which has an estimated 700,000 HIV cases, only 30 percent of men who have sex with men use condoms, according to a new Chinese government/UN report. And in urban areas, new cases are growing fast in this community.

"If you just look at urban cases, in China they are starting to make up a large proportion of HIV infections," Settle said, adding this was also the case in other major cities around the region.

"What we don't know is the second and third tier cities."

(Editing by Nick Macfie)