In a report released in Manila, the WHO called on Asian countries to "aggressively implement" HIV prevention programs for drug users, including the controversial practice of providing clean needles, to ensure safe injection practices among them.
The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The WHO report released by its Manila-based Western Pacific regional office said that in the next few years, AIDS will weigh even heavier on Asian countries with more people stricken and dying of the disease.
For most moderately affected Asian countries, annual deaths among adults will increase by five percent in the coming decade due to AIDS, it said.
In areas most affected – Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and a few states in India – the death rates of adults will rise 40 percent, the WHO warned.
India alone could see a third of a million deaths due to AIDS in 2005, the WHO forecast.
The report did not give comparative figures.
Despite the AIDS threat, the WHO said few countries were equipped to deal with the problem with only Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore having "adequate resources to provide for both prevention and care."
It called on Asian nations to focus on drug addicts and prostitutes in the battle against AIDS.
This could include providing clean needles to addicts and promoting condom use among prostitutes.
Some governments in Asia are against providing clean needles to addicts because it would encourage the larger drug abuse problem.
The WHO said the AIDS epidemic in virtually all of Asia is concentrated on sex workers and injecting drug users, making the region "comparatively unique."
But few Asian countries are trying to stop the spread of AIDS among these "socially marginalized sectors" which are usually treated as outcasts, it said.
The report said "most countries are targeting efforts at the general public" but warned that "the only responsible public health action to take" is to focus attention on these groups who are most at risk.
It said that in Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal, China’s Yunnan province and Manipur in India, about 50 percent or more of the injecting drug users are infected with the HIV virus.
It also found "relatively high rates of infection ... among sex workers in Myanmar and some Indian cities."
While Asian women rarely engaged in sex outside of wedlock, a small "core" of infected prostitutes can spread the disease to their clients who could spread it to their wives and girlfriends, the WHO said.
It endorsed the examples of Thailand and Cambodia, which both heavily promoted condoms in the sex industry, leading to a sharp drop in the infection rates of sex workers.