NEW DELHI: Only 19 per cent of Asians who need AIDS drugs receive them, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report said on Tuesday, calling for a surge in treatment to meet a 2010 goal for universal access.

South, southeast and east Asia, including India with the world’s highest caseload of HIV-positive people, all lag behind Sub-Saharan Africa, where 28 per cent of people needing treatment received it in 2006, the report said.

“Universal access by 2010 will require a steep increase in the number of people starting treatment every year,” said the report.

In 2006, the UN General Assembly agreed to work towards universal access to “comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support” by 2010. Asia compares poorly with the Caribbean and Latin America where overall treatment coverage is around 72 per cent, although 280,000 people in south, southeast and east Asia were on anti-AIDS treatment in 2006, a four-fold jump over 2003.

India, with 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, falls way behind South Africa — home to the second-highest number of people with the virus — in terms of treatment.

Less than three per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women in India received drugs for prevention of viral transmission from mother to child in 2005. India is a focus nation of the report.

The WHO report said Thailand was a rare success in Asia when it came to treating pregnant women with HIV.—Reuters