A new United Nations report warns that AIDS is reaching epidemic proportions in the Asia-Pacific region. 

The report, prepared for release this month, says at least seven million people in the region have AIDS or the AIDS virus. At least one-half of those cases are in India, which the report says is second only to South Africa in the number of people infected. 

Officials plan to distribute the report to government ministers at a meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok May 16 through 22. 

They say that unless government, civic groups and the private sector focus urgent attention on combating the virus, the number of people living with AIDS in the region could soon reach monumental proportions. 

China is highlighted in the report as a place where there could be as many as 10 million people with HIV/AIDS by the end of this decade. Elsewhere, more than four percent of the adult population in Cambodia and two percent in Thailand are said to be affected. 

The report says that in Asia, AIDS is transmitted mainly through heterosexual intercourse and intravenous drug use. It also says people under the age of 24 are the most vulnerable, and they account for more than half of all new infections. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.

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