China will double its spending on AIDS/HIV prevention to some $370 million over the next two years as the country tries to keep the number of HIV-positive people below 1.5 million by 2010, state media said on Wednesday.

The government will spend 800 million yuan ($99.10 million) on prevention work this year, but will almost double that in the next two years to 1.5 billion yuan in both 2006 and 2007, the official China Daily said.

In 2001, China spent just 100 million yuan, the newspaper said.

China has stepped up the fight against HIV-AIDS in recent years after initially being slow to acknowledge its threat, but public fear and ignorance make the battle an uphill one.

Even among better-educated urban dwellers, nearly 60 percent would be "nervous" to have contact with HIV positive people in public, Xinhua news agency has quoted a Health Ministry survey as saying.

China says it has 840,000 HIV carriers, but experts estimate a much higher figure, with perhaps one million people infected in the central province of Henan alone because of a botched blood-selling scheme in mid-1990s.

The government aims to keep the number of cases under 1.5 million by 2010, a number sharply lower than the World Health Organisation's projection of 10 million if nothing is done to prevent the disease's spread.

Over 80 percent of HIV positive people in China are aged between 20 and 39, the newspaper added.

Nigeria will double the number of government centers where AIDS patients can get free drugs in the next three months as part of a major drive to widen access to treatment, the government anti-AIDS agency said on Friday.

Nigeria started distributing anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) for free this month from 33 government health facilities, scrapping a 1,000 naira ($8) fee that patients previously had to pay for subsidized drugs.

"We plan to add an additional 33 centers in the first quarter," Babatunde Osotimehin, chairman of the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA), said in an interview with Reuters.

Nigeria has 3.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS, the third-highest number in the world after India and South Africa, and an estimated 40,000 people on ARVs.

Osotimehin said he was confident that NACA's target of getting 250,000 people on the drugs by the end of this year would be met, partly because the drugs can now be obtained free of charge.

"There will be greater equity. We are not yet in a position to have universal access, but the fact that poor people will be able to access drugs is a major progress," he said.

Two thirds of Nigeria's estimated 140 million people live on less than a dollar a day, and AIDS charities had long argued that the 1,000 naira fee put the drugs beyond the reach of many.

Osotimehin said it would now be easier for people to take the right doses of drugs without interruption, which is important because taking insufficient, irregular doses causes the body to develop resistance to ARVs.

"The issue of reduced response to drugs over the long term can be brought down to the bare minimum," he said.

EXTRA COSTS

Relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres said the free drugs program did not go far enough because patients would still have to pay for expensive tests that are vital to monitor treatment, and for drugs for opportunistic infections.

In response, Osotimehin said the government would also subsidize those tests and drugs but it was still studying how it would do so. Treatment for tuberculosis, one of the more common illnesses among AIDS patients, was already free in Nigeria.

He said full HIV/AIDS care including tests was free for children and pregnant women -- a key part of efforts to prevent the transmission of the virus from mother to child.

Funding for the free care is coming from government and from major donors such as the World Bank, the U.S. government and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Osotimehin defended NACA's work against criticism from a Global Fund panel which said late last year it would recommend terminating two grants worth $80 million over five years, after they have run for only two years.

The panel said it had "serious concerns" about NACA's ability to implement the grants, citing missed targets, questionable data, failure to set up a computerized accounting system and low disbursement.

Osotimehin said all of those concerns had been addressed. The problems stemmed from a long delay in starting work, due to bureaucracy at NACA and at the Global Fund, he said.

"Because of the delays it was difficult to meet targets," he said, adding that the agency now had the required computerized system and had sent full accounts of funds disbursed and drugs delivered to Global Fund headquarters in Geneva.

The number of deaths from AIDS last year fell sharply because of much wider access to anti-retroviral drugs in Thailand, the public health ministry said.

Some 1,478 people died from AIDS between January and November last year compared to 6,593 for the same period in 2004, the ministry said.

"The sharp drop is because of widespread access to anti-retroviral drugs which resulted in improvements to the lives of people living with AIDS and HIV," Thawat Suntrajarn, the Disease Control Department director said in a statement.

"The ministry has targetted a reduction in new AIDS/HIV cases to not more than 16,000 in 2006," or a cut of about 10 percent, Thawat said.

There were an estimated 18,000 new AIDS/HIV cases reported in 2005, mostly among homosexuals and teenagers, he added.

Health authorities will increase their anti-AIDS campaigns for teenagers, particularly in tourist cities such as Pattaya and Phuket, stocking some 24 million condoms in 4,575 vending machines nationwide, Thawat said.

The ministry also aims to drastically reduce babies born HIV-positive. Last year, some 2,400 were born HIV-positive but this year the target is several hundred such infections.

Thailand made low-cost anti-retroviral drugs available on its national health scheme from October for the more than half a million people here living with HIV/AIDS.

The drugs, produced in Thailand, were available as part of a health scheme which allows the poor to receive hospital treatment for 30 baht (75 cents) per visit.

Some 12,556 people in Iran are infected with the HIV virus, 631 of whom have already developed AIDS, according to the health ministry's latest figures reported by a student news agency.

Based on the statistics reported the news agency ISNA, the age range of 25-34 with 3,800 cases accounts for the highest rate of infection and most of the reported cases are men, with 11,875, compared to 681 women.

The report put the number of dead at 1,457.

Intravenous drug use is still the main cause of infection at 62.3 percent, followed by unknown causes with 27.9 percent and sexual contact at 7.4 percent.

The official number of the country's infected was 10,265 in April.

But with testing facilities limited and shunned sufferers often unwilling to come forward, experts estimate that as many as 40,000 people may be HIV positive.

"Don't forget us," a Bulgarian nurse who is behind bars accused of infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus begged during a prison visit by the French foreign minister.

"We are innocent," said nurse Kristiana Vulcheva, who was on the verge of tears as she sat next to Philippe Douste-Blazy inside the Jdeida prison on the outskirts of Tripoli.

"We know very well we are hostages of a political witch (hunt)," said Vulcheva, who along with four colleagues and a Palestinian doctor have spent nearly seven years in prison and could face death by firing squad if their appeal is rejected.

"We are exhausted, psychologically exhausted," she added.

The six were sentenced to death in May 2004 over a controversial case in which they were convicted of deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV.

Fifty-one of the children have since died of AIDS.

Libya's supreme court last year ordered a retrial for the six, who have based their appeal on the testimony of Western experts who said the infections were caused by unsanitary conditions at the hospital.

"We are innocent, (just like) the children contaminated. We are victims, too," said Palestinian doctor Ahmed Ashraf al-Hadjudi.

Because one of the nurses was ill, only four were able to meet with Douste-Blazy, a cardiologist by training.

Douste-Blazy said he was "happy" that he had been allowed to meet the imprisoned medics, voicing hope "this nightmare was nearing an end."

As diplomatic efforts aimed at securing leniency for the medics have faltered, Douste-Blazy embarked on the trip to pitch a French proposal to the Libyan authorities.

The plan would aim to treat the most gravely ill Libyan children in France, as well as improve training for personnel and provide better equipment for the Benghazi hospital where the infections occurred.

Douste-Blazy was to head to the northeastern town of Benghazi later in the day to visit the hospital and meet families of the infected children.

Libya's supreme court on December 25 ordered a retrial, effectively overturning the death sentences and giving new hope that the prisoners could one day be released.

Libyan Justice Minister Ali Hasnawi told AFP at the time that the new trial would be held "in one month" and there would be "new judges".

The move was quickly welcomed by Bulgaria, the United States and the Council of Europe.

The families of hundreds of Libyan children infected with the AIDS virus have demanded 10 million dollars for each child in compensation.

The sum matches the compensation paid by Libya to families of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland.

Idriss Lagha, a lawyer for the families, told Bulgarian reporters in late December that the five nurses could have their sentences shortened if the money were paid.

Talks over compensation payments between Bulgarian officials and Libyan families of HIV positive children are to resume on January 15.

Bulgaria announced last month it was creating a fund for AIDS-infected children in Libya, a move greeted in some quarters as heralding a possible breakthrough in the stalemate.

Bulgaria's President Georgy Parvanov has admitted that a release of the nurses would "have a very high price" and it remains unclear what role the fund will play in finding any eventual solution.

All six defendants had pleaded not guilty ahead of their conviction in May 2004. Two of the nurses and the doctor said during the trial that they were tortured into confessing.

The Benghazi court that first condemned the medics had rejected testimony from foreign experts that the epidemic was due to a lack of hygiene.

Instead the court based its verdict on a report by Libyan experts that blamed the foreign health workers.