Most of the new cases were among gay and bisexual men and were concentrated in the cities of Berlin and Hamburg, the institute said in a statement.

RKI epidemiologist Ulrich Marcus said the findings indicated "more risky behavior" among homosexual men, noting that syphilis often appeared as a "co-infection" in HIV patients.

"Condoms protect against infections but are often not used in genital-oral contact. Syphilis can also be transmitted in that way," he said.

The number of men among patients infected with syphilis rose by 85 percent in 2002 while the number of heterosexuals affected remained stable.

Countries such as France, Britain and the United States have reported increases in their syphilis rates in the last several months after years of stagnation.

Marcus said that Germany's rate was nevertheless far lower than in eastern Europe, for example, where the disease was spreading rapidly.

By Richard Waddington

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is confident of increasing the number of AIDS sufferers on drug treatment tenfold in just over two years, but is going to need help, the U.N. agency's new AIDS chief said on Wednesday.

Paulo Teixeira, who led Brazil's widely-lauded drive against the killer disease, told Reuters much more money must come from wealthy states but poor countries bearing the brunt of the epidemic would also have to play their part.

Without naming names, he said some developing states were still not taking seriously enough a disease which killed over three million last year, mostly in poor countries.

"We are facing a catastrophe and we need all actors to make additional effort. The money -- which is not enough yet -- must come from rich states, but we also need to ensure all countries are doing the best that they can," he said in an interview.

WHO chief Lee Jong-Wook on taking office earlier this month set as a top priority the challenge of getting three million AIDS sufferers in Third World countries on life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs by the end of 2005. Around 300,000 currently have access to the drugs.

The size of the task is such that even if the campaign got into full swing next month, and it will not, it needs to get 100,000 new patients on treatment each month to hit the target.

The amount of financing currently pledged to organizations such as the Global Fund, the U.N.-approved cash-raising venture, and the World Bank, was only enough to put an additional 900,000 people on life-prolonging drugs.

"My belief is that it is absolutely feasible, despite the magnitude of the task," Teixeira said.

"To do nothing is not acceptable. People are dying, including health workers, and each year we lose will make the task more difficult in the future."

WHO's role would be a "catalyst" giving technical help to affected countries to develop programs and using its influence to mobilize international political support.

BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCE

Brazil's experience could prove important because it showed what could be done with relatively limited resources.

When the South American giant launched its program in 1983 it was among the world's worst affected countries, but two decades on, the infection rate stands at around one percent of adults compared with some 20 percent in South Africa.

Brazil's success showed that some controversies that had long dogged the battle against AIDS -- such as whether prevention or cure should be given priority -- were merely false dilemmas, Teixeira said.

The same went for the assertion that poor countries lacking efficient health systems would be incapable of handling an effective drugs program.

Brazil now has a strong network of hospitals and laboratories to support its AIDS program but it did not when it started.

"We need to act. Waiting for better times or better conditions is not an answer," Teixeira said, adding that one of the best ways to build up health systems was through implementing AIDS treatment programs.

RESISTANCE

The threat that resistance to AIDS drugs might quickly wipe out much of the benefit from an expanded treatment program should also not be used as an argument for doing nothing.

Resistance, due to the mutation of the AIDS-causing HIV virus, was a problem for all, not just the Third World, he said.

With a course of AIDS treatment still costing $250-300 a year, even for out-of-patent, cheaper, generic drugs, big multinational pharmaceutical companies needed to do more to get prices down, he said.

"They have to be open to reduce profits. We are talking about lives and this must change the paradigm of the discussion," he said.

TOKYO (AFP) - The Japanese Red Cross said it had shipped 6,419 units of possibly contaminated blood products for use in transfusions since June last year through this month, news reports said.

Of those units, Red Cross had been able to recall 13 units, with the rest likely to have been used, Jiji Press, Kyodo News and the online edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said on Monday.

The affected blood products were made from blood donated by people with hepatitis or other viruses, the reports said.

Red Cross officials in Tokyo could not be reached for immediate comment.

The revelation came as the Japan Red Cross recalled donated blood after finding 29 people might have been infected with hepatitis B and C through blood transfusions.

The Red Cross also found that at least one HIV-infected man donated blood without being detected by a rigorous testing system.

Government health officials planned to order the Red Cross to inform those people who received the affected blood products about the health risk, Jiji and Kyodo said.

Officials will call on those individuals to go through medical check-ups, reports said.

The affected donated blood units have cleared a sensitive test.

The conventional screening technology however is not capable of detecting viruses during a certain period after a blood donor was infected.

The Red Cross believes the window period might have allowed the blood products to pass the test despite possible contamination, Kyodo said, citing Red Cross officials.

The Red Cross planned to examine its records for the past eight years for similar cases of possibly contaminated blood products, reports said.

It is believed that tens of thousands of people received possibly contaminated blood products, Jiji added.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday he would fully fund his five-year, $15 billion plan to combat AIDS, brushing aside questions about his commitment to the initiative.

Activists expressed outrage earlier this month after the Republican-led House of Representatives moved legislation backing Bush's request for $2 billion next year -- $1 billion less in AIDS funding than had been expected.

"We sent up something less than $3 billion because we didn't think the program could ramp up fast enough to absorb that amount of money early," said Bush, who touted the AIDS initiative during his recent visit to Africa.

Bush said distribution systems for AIDS drugs had to be in place before the money was sent out, and that suggestions he was backing away from his $15 billion commitment were "simply not true."

"It ramps up more in the out-years, as the program is capable of absorbing a lot of money," Bush said.

Under the initiative, anti-viral treatment will be available to about 2 million HIV-infected people in Africa and the Caribbean who cannot afford the costly cocktail of drugs that can prolong and improve their lives.

It also provides hospice care for the dying, helps some of the 13 million children who have lost one or both parents and intensifies prevention programs through strategies like sexual abstinence, education and promotion of condom use.

By Wambui Chege

PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa accused critics Thursday of double standards for condemning its concerns over a drug used to stop babies from contracting AIDS when U.S. researchers had raised similar doubts.

South Africa's Medicines Control Council (MCC) sparked a furor this week after it told German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim it had rejected a Ugandan study used to show Nevirapine's effectiveness when used to block transmission of HIV from mother to child.

The independent MCC has given the firm 90 days to submit fresh information on safety and effectiveness or have the drug's approval revoked -- a move activists say would mark a huge step backward for a country with some 4.7 million people infected with HIV, the world's highest caseload.

"I think they want to emphasize the same standards that apply to the developed world and the United States should apply to the developing world. We can't have double standards," Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told a news conference.

"We can't have something that's only good for Africa and not good for developed countries," added the minister, embroiled in a feud with AIDS activists over the government's reluctance to provide anti-retrovirals drugs in the public sector.

A court order last year compelled South Africa's government to provide Nevirapine to pregnant HIV-positive mothers and their babies at all state hospitals. AIDS activists say they believe the order would also require the government to provide alternative treatment if Nevirapine were banned.

Nevirapine has been approved by the World Health Organization, and U.S. regulators and its manufacturer have been at pains to emphasize they consider the drug neither unsafe nor ineffective.

But the MCC's concerns revolve around reporting and documentation in the 1999 Uganda trial -- although no evidence was found to indicate its conclusions were invalid or any of the participants had been placed at an increased risk of harm.

The U.S. government raised similar doubts last year when researchers found "procedural" problems in the Ugandan trials. Privately held Boehringer Ingelheim dropped plans to seek permission to widen marketing of Nevirapine in the United States for use in mother-to-child prevention.

Sold under the name Viramune, Nevirapine is one of the standard drugs used in cocktails that can suppress the virus. It can also help protect newborns from catching HIV from their mothers, with some research indicating infection rates cut by nearly a half.

Tshabalala-Msimang said the government was considering its options in case the drug was banned.

By Andrew Quinn

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - President Thabo Mbeki on Friday argued South Africa had the right to question a key drug used to prevent babies contracting AIDS, saying it must not bow to "self-serving beliefs" as it decides whether to ban the drug.

Mbeki, wading into a new dispute on AIDS treatment in the nation hardest hit by the epidemic, said the state Medicines Control Council was right to raise doubts about Nevirapine, a key drug that can help suppress the HIV virus.

The MCC, an independent regulator, this week told drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim it had rejected a Ugandan study used to show Nevirapine's effectiveness in blocking mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and would bar this use of the drug unless it received fresh data within 90 days.

Nevirapine has nevertheless been approved by the World Health Organization, and U.S. regulators and its manufacturer have been at pains to emphasize they consider the drug neither unsafe nor ineffective.

Mbeki, who in the past has publicly questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, said South Africa must have "the courage to stand up for what we think and feel is correct."

"This announcement illustrated the challenge we face, to ensure that even on this vexed question...(we refuse) to allow the never-ending search for scientific truth to be suffocated by self-serving beliefs," he said in his weekly online letter for the ruling African National Congress.

About 4.7 million people in South Africa are infected with HIV -- the single highest caseload in the world -- and activists say about 600 South Africans die each day from the disease.

The MCC's move on Nevirapine has been sharply criticized by AIDS activists in South Africa, where the government has resisted calls to provide anti-retroviral drugs like Nevirapine in the public health sector.

A court order last year compelled South Africa's government to provide Nevirapine to pregnant HIV-positive mothers and their babies in state hospitals.

The MCC's concerns revolve around reporting and documentation in the 1999 Uganda trial, although no evidence was found to indicate its conclusions were invalid or any of the participants had been placed at an increased risk of harm.

The U.S. government raised similar doubts last year when researchers found "procedural" problems in the Ugandan trials.

Mbeki said that South Africa would have to stand firm and make its own decision on issues such as Nevirapine.

"We must free ourselves of the 'friends' who populate our ranks, originating from the world of the rich, who come to us, perhaps dressed in jeans and T-shirts, as advisers and consultants," he said.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Official India had its most open discussion yet on the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic at a workshop but activists stressed more was needed than just a conference from which leaders of the worst-affected states were glaringly absent.

More than 1,000 policymakers and activists gathered for the two-day meet that opened with a call by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for more political courage in addressing the growing scourge of AIDS in India.

The message went unheard by leaders of the Indian states worst-hit by HIV/AIDS -- southern Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, western Maharashtra and northeastern Manipur and Nagaland -- as they were not present.

And while the forum passed a resolution calling for more commitment to combatting AIDS and legislation protecting HIV victims, many delegates seemed to find it more fulfilling to relax in the convention hall's lounges than to listen to yet another politican's speech.

Signs at the conference offered the delegates, some making rare visits to New Delhi, free sightseeing trips around the Indian capital in air-conditioned buses.

Activists and organisers nonetheless called the forum an important step.

"For the first time, all sections of Indian democracy have begun thinking and talking about AIDS," said Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, project director of the National AIDS Control Organisation.

Ghosh said the conference, which closed Sunday, saw "a lot of discussion about discrimination and the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS," factors she said had driven the epidemic underground and helped it to flourish.

Sex, the most frequent means of transmitting the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS, is rarely discussed openly in India by parents or teachers -- let alone politicians.

"The political leadership has so far been shy of discussing HIV/AIDS. In this forum we brought the subject out into the open and there has been discussion on it, which is an achievement," said Kirit Somayya, an MP of Vajpayee's BJP party and an organiser of the conference.

Somayya, whose constituency is in Bombay, played down the absence of leaders from highly-affected states including his own, Maharashtra, saying it was also important to focus on provinces with relatively low recorded levels of HIV.

"While states like Uttar Pradesh (in the north), Bihar and Orissa (in the east) are at present low prevalance states, they have huge numbers of migrant labourers.

"These are the vulnerable lot. They have started coming back home and infections are being observed ... in the rural areas of these backward states," he said.

India announced on the eve of the conference that it had 4.58 million people with HIV at the end of 2002, a jump of more than half a million from the previous year.

Activists have blasted the AIDS policies of the Hindu nationalist-led government, whose health minister, Sushma Swaraj, is a critic of "condom-centric" programmes and has called for an emphasis on sexual abstinence.

Activist Nafisa Ali noted that in Swaraj's remarks to the conference the minister called for more awareness that HIV can be passed from mothers to children.

"Statistics show that more than 80 percent of those infected contracted the disease due to unprotected sex with an affected person," Ali said.

"So the use of condoms has to be propagated along with other methods."

Vajpayee, in his address Saturday, said HIV/AIDS "is not only a grave global challenge. It is equally a national concern, one that demands effective and undelayed response."

He acknowledged that Indian leaders have not always paid attention to public health issues and said the fight against AIDS "requires greater courage and commitment."

"It requires leadership that is ready to go to the heart of the problem and is ready even to go against the stream of public opinion."

By Paul Simao

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The Bush administration's second-ranking health official on Wednesday advocated making abstinence a key pillar of HIV prevention programs for young Americans, prompting sharp criticism from AIDS activists.

"Encouraging young people and young adults to abstain is the only appropriate initial strategy," Claude Allen, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, told delegates at the end of the 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.

"Delaying sexual debut is the first message they should hear," said Allen, a leading proponent of abstinence-only sex education and a former aide to conservative icon and former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.

While acknowledging that condoms could sometimes stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases, Allen said their use should not take priority over messages that stressed abstinence and monogamy to young people.

Allen's comments prompted jeers from hundreds of activists at the conference in Atlanta and came just days after the federal government reported that the number of AIDS cases had risen in 2002 for the first time in nearly a decade.

An estimated 850,000 to 950,000 Americans have the AIDS virus. AIDS killed 16,371 people across the nation last year.

"Allowing Claude Allen, a man with such hostile viewpoints on the basic tenets of HIV prevention, to close the conference speaks volumes about the Bush administration's true agenda on these issues," said Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS.

Many activists have criticized the White House for adopting a new AIDS prevention strategy in April that they say is skewed toward programs that focus on testing and counseling people who already have the disease.

Anderson and others fear that the new approach could cut funding for many community-based programs that emphasize condom use and other safe-sex practices for those not infected with the disease.

NEW YORK - TLC's Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins is offering encouragement to those who have the HIV virus.

She said people with HIV have "everything to live for" — not only for themselves but for their kids, brothers, sisters or relatives. Watkins and fellow group member Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas are promoting an AIDS) education initiative called "Dialogues."

The program is designed to help people get information about HIV and get involved in their own care.

"Every one person is not the same," Watkins told AP Radio. "So you need to be educated if you are positive with HIV to know what questions to ask your doctor." The singers claim they have lost close friends to AIDS.

Watkins said black women, in particular, should be tested because AIDS has spread rapidly among them.

Watkins and Thomas are the surviving members of the group after Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was killed in April 2002.

Lopes, 30, died after her sport utility vehicle crashed in Honduras, where she was on vacation. Thomas and Watkins have decided to continue TLC as a duo. With Lopes, the R&B group sold more than 21 million albums and won four Grammys.

LONDON (Reuters) - The European Medicines Evaluation Agency said on Thursday doctors should not start HIV patients on a combination of drugs made by GlaxoSmithKline and Gilead Sciences Inc after a study showed it did not reduce viral load in nearly half the patients taking it.

In a statement, the EMEA said that patients already taking the three-drug combination of Ziagen, Epivir and Viread should be "frequently monitored and considered for modification of therapy at the first sign of viral load increase."

It also advised patients receiving, or about to receive the three drugs to immediately inform their doctor.

The agency said the "precautionary measure" followed a GlaxoSmithKline-sponsored study which found that 50 out of 102 patients (49%) taking the triple drug combination still had high viral loads after eight weeks.

After 12 weeks, 30 out of 63 patients (48%) had still not responded to the therapy.

There was no immediate response from the companies.

The two GlaxoSmithKline drugs have been widely used for years, often in combination with GSK's first anti-viral drug Retrovir.

Gilead's Viread was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The drug received expanded European Union marketing authorization in May for use in patients starting antiretroviral therapy as well as previously treated patients.