Preventive programs 'most pragmatic to combat HIV'.

NEW DELHI, India (JP): Experts and NGOs activists attending the 12th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related Harm held here last April sent two urgent messages to governments all over the world.

First, injecting drug users' (IDUs') risky behavior has played an important role in the sharply increasing number of HIV/AIDS infections and transmissions; second, that prevention efforts based on harm reduction principles were the most rational and pragmatic way to avoid an HIV/AIDS catastrophe.

The December 2000 UNAIDS Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic stated that IDUs were the main mode of HIV/AIDS transmission in seven regions, including South East Asia, of ten regions surveyed.

In that single year an estimated 5.3 million new HIV infections occurred, 95 percent of which took place …