NEW DELHI (AFX) - China and Myanmar are not doing enough to prevent the spread of AIDS, a UN report said, praising Thailand as the Asian success story for bringing about a decline in the number of new HIV cases.

China had made slow progress in fulfilling a 2003 pledge to provide antiretroviral treatment to all who need it, warned the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 released in the New Delhi ahead of World AIDS day on December 1.

The majority of China's cases were detected in Yunnan and Henan provinces in the Guangxi autonomous region, it said, adding the least affected areas 'for the moment' were Qinghai province and the Tibet autonomous region.

'In Myanmar, limited prevention efforts led HIV to spread freely -- at first within the most at-risk groups and later beyond them. Consequently Myanmar had one of the most serious AIDS epidemics in the region,' it said.

'By 2003 the estimated national adult HIV prevalence had dropped to its lowest level ever, approximately 1.5 percent,' the report said but noted that only 51 pct of Thai sex workers reported using condoms.

On India, which has more than 5.13 mln people living with HIV/AIDS, second only to South Africa, the world body said overall HIV prevalence continued to rise as it was affecting high-risk population groups.

'Transmitted mainly through unprotected sex in southern India and injecting drug use in the (country's) northeast, HIV is spreading beyond urban areas,' it said.

In Bangladesh and the Philippines, HIV prevalence has been low but there were signs the situation could change for the worse, the report warned.

Asia accounts for roughly 20 pct, or 8.3 mln people, of the 40 mln plus people infected with HIV worldwide. But the prevalence rate remains a relatively low 0.4 pct of the adult population, according to UNAIDS.

'The majority of drug users are sexually active ... large proportions of them buy or sell sex,' causing the large-scale spread of the disease, it said.

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