Australia Helps Fight HIV/AIDS in Mekong Region

MEDIA RELEASE

Released By:
Downer

I am pleased to announce a major new
initiative in Australia's continuing program of assistance to help combat
HIV/AIDS in the Mekong sub-region of South East Asia.

The Australian Government will fund a $5
million Mekong Regional HIV/AIDS Initiative in support of a sub-regional
strategy to address the HIV epidemic.

HIV/AIDS is a rapidly growing problem in
the Mekong sub-region, which comprises Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Yunnan
Province of China, Laos and Burma.

Fast-moving epidemics in Cambodia and
Burma are intensifying the spread of the epidemic across the sub-region, leading
to increasing social and economic costs for individuals, families and
governments.

UNAIDS has estimated that across the whole
of South and South East Asia, six million adults and children are living with
HIV/AIDS, the majority of those infected between the ages of 15 and 35 years.

I announced in the Budget in May, $1
million in direct funding for activities in the Mekong sub-region, and am happy
to announce today that this amount has been increased to a total $5 million to
be spent over three years.

The funds, to be allocated through the
Government's aid agency, AusAID, will be used initially to support regional
coordination of HIV/AIDS activities and to strengthen local non-government and
community organisations working on the disease. Assistance to non-government and
community organisations will in part be in the form of small grants managed by
AusAID staff in the sub-region, enabling quick, flexible responses.

The Mekong Regional HIV/AIDS Initiative
will support a regional HIV/AIDS strategy initiated at a meeting hosted by
Australia in Bangkok in December 1997. The strategy aims to increase the
effectiveness of multi-country responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the
Mekong sub-region and will focus on issues such as increased distribution of
condoms; management, prevention and care of sexually transmitted diseases;
increased care for affected individuals; and education programs.

Because the problems associated with the
spread of HIV/AIDS are shared by all countries of the sub-region and the nature
of the disease defies national borders, a sub-regional approach in addition to
individual national responses is seen as particularly valuable.

MANILA