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India may have topped new AIDS cases list: Gore

India may have had the highest number of new AIDS infections in the world last year, US Vice-President Al Gore has said, while pledging a fresh 150-million-dollar investment to combat the global menace of AIDS and other infectious diseases.

''AIDS and other infectious diseases are the largest catastrophes in the history of modern medicine... An estimated 5.7 million people were infected with HIV by the end of 1999, and India may have become the country with the largest number of infections this year,'' he said at the United Nations on Monday.

He said that sub-Saharan Africa and Asia disproportionately bear the impact of the AIDS epidemic. Although sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only one-tenth of the world population, it has over 70 per cent of the world's AIDS cases.

''Currently, 22.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, and every day, an additional 11,000 become infected. In Asia, HIV and AIDS are already widespread. Because this region has 60 per cent of the world's population and has the steepest infection curve, experts are predicting that Asia will soon become the epicentre of the epidemic,'' Gore cautioned.

The US president's financial year 2001 budget will set aside 325 million dollars for HIV prevention and AIDS treatment around the world, doubling last year's allocation.

Currently, treatment options for HIV-infected people in sub-Saharan Africa and India are limited and less than five per cent of the people know their HIV status while health care providers often lack the necessary tools and resources to tackle the menace, Gore added.

UNI

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