SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore faces an AIDS epidemic, with the number of new infections diagnosed expected to hit a rate of 1,000 a year by 2010, a health official said.

Lack of cash means it is still unclear whether a new round of project funding against the three killers will be approved when the group holds its meeting in Arusha on Nov. 17-19.

More than half of the money committed by the fund so far to some 300 programmes in 130 countries goes to fight HIV/AIDS, which has killed 20 million people in the past two decades and infected nearly twice that number.

"As people from the grassroots, we need these drugs. We are not ready to give up. The Global Fund and its board members must not give up on us," said Kassim Issa, a co-founder of the Kenya Organisation of People Living with HIV/AIDS said.

The fund says it needs at least $2.5 billion to carry out its work in 2005, up from $1.5 billion this year, but so far has secured only around $1.6 billion.

The G8 declared in 2003 that the Global Fund should get $3 billion a year, with French President Jacques Chirac proposing $1 billion from Europe, $1 billion from the United States and $1 billion from other countries.

But donations to the Geneva-based public-private partnership have fallen short of such pledges, amid tensions between Washington and other governments over the best way of tackling AIDS.

"The members of the Board, including rich governments, must not turn their backs on the original promise of the Global Fund to be a "war chest" in fighting HIV/AIDS and on the millions of people who will die without treatment," Patricia Asero Ochieng of the Dandora Community said.

"Countries are relying upon the Global Fund to fill the funding gaps for AIDS medicines and more healthcare workers."

"This happened two years ago in Khujand [capital of the northern Sogd province, some 350 km to the north of the capital, Dushanbe]," Rano Alieva, deputy head of the health ministry's maternal and child health department, told IRIN.

But the introduction of new treatment regimes for such mothers means that people like Shakhlo now have alternatives. "The woman had a termination because she thought there was no hope. At that time the country's medical institutions couldn't help an HIV-infected mother to deliver a baby. Now we could have saved the child of that woman."

HIV can be transmitted from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy, labour and delivery, or through breastfeeding. In the absence of breastfeeding, most infections occur during labour and delivery. Reported transmission rates ranged from 13 to 32 percent in industrialised countries and from 25 to 48 percent in developing countries. Some reports suggest that breastfeeding can increase the risk of transmission by up to 15 percent.

According to the estimates of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Tajikistan is now at an early stage of HIV/AIDS epidemic. But statistics show that the infection is on the rise in the impoverished Central Asian country.

In March 2004, there were 170 officially registered HIV/AIDS cases. By 1 November 2004, according to Azam Mirzoev, director of the National AIDS Centre, that figure had increased to 305, including 61 women.

However, statistics on the number of HIV-infected women who are pregnant, or have already delivered children, were neither available at the Ministry of Health nor at the AIDS centre.

"The majority of HIV-infected women in the country are injecting drug users, commercial sex workers and prisoners, most do not want to be pregnant," Sobir Kurbanov, head of UNICEF's public health programme in the former Soviet republic, told IRIN.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mother to child transmission (MTCT) is the most significant source of HIV infection in children below the age of 15 years. Since the beginning of the pandemic, an estimated 5.1 million children worldwide have been infected, almost all through MTCT. In 2000, more than 600,000 children became infected, of whom 90 percent were in Africa.

Khairiniso Zurkholova, head of neonatology at the Tajik Scientific Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Paediatrics, believes that the risk group has to include wives of labour migrants who go back and forth to Russia. The estimates for migrant workers in the country vary between 600,000 and over a million.

There have been some reported cases when wives of migrant workers from remote areas were diagnosed with syphilis, gonorrhoea and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Some local health workers say that migrant workers often contract HIV/AIDS in Russia and infect their wives back in their home country.

Now there is a growing realisation in Tajikistan that such women need assistance during their pregnancies and medical intervention to prevent the syndrome spreading to the unborn child. "Medical institutions in the country should be ready to render assistance to pregnant HIV-infected women regardless of whether they interrupt pregnancy or deliver a child," Alieva of the mother and child health department said.

In an effort to tackle the issue, a project on the prevention of MTCT was launched in 2002 with the support of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Three health specialists from Dushanbe underwent training in Ukraine. Guidelines have been developed for medical workers on the prevention of MTCT.

"Currently, we have purchased medicines for anti-retroviral [drugs that inhibit the replication of the virus] therapy, this will dramatically reduce the MTCT rate," Kurbanov said. A number of maternity hospitals, where medical personnel are able to deliver a child from an HIV-infected women, have been identified in Dushanbe, Sogd province and the southern Khatlon province.

At these facilities, HIV-positive expectant mothers can undergo complete examination and diagnostics and also receive courses in anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. ARV drugs have the potential to dramatically improve the health and extend the lives of some people with HIV/AIDS. Yet the high cost and demanding clinical requirements of these drugs put them out of reach of the vast majority of people with HIV. This problem is especially acute in poor countries like Tajikistan, where public resources are extremely scarce.

Her colleague Zurkholova said how important they were. "The experience of working in the provinces has shown that medical staff [on the ground] frequently lack information on HIV transmission. Up to now many continue to think that AIDS is transmitted only via sex. It is necessary for us to train medical personnel to deliver children without harm to the health of the mother, child or personnel," she pointed out.

"In any case, women should not panic having learnt about the diagnosis. Medical personnel should explain to them that prevention of the transfer of the disease to the child is possible with the help of anti-retroviral therapy," she added.

In wealthy nations, interventions such as ARV drugs, safe alternatives to breast milk, and elective caesarean section mean that only 2 to 5 percent of HIV-positive mothers infect their babies, according to the US-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Brad Pitt Visits Ethiopia to Study AIDS

Brad Pitt spent four days in Ethiopia to learn more about AIDS in Africa as part of a fund-raising campaign to combat the disease on the world's poorest continent.

The trip was organized by DATA, a Washington-based lobby group co-founded by rock star Bono that campaigns on Third World trade, debt and HIV/AIDS. Pitt began his first visit to Ethiopia Friday and left late Monday night.

"It was a listening and learning visit," DATA spokesman Jamie Drummond said Tuesday. He declined requests for comment from Pitt, star of the film "Troy."

While in Ethiopia, Pitt visited local projects fighting the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The 40-year-old actor also met with eight top Ethiopian singers who have collaborated on songs to educate people about HIV and to raise money for AIDS programs.

Tsedenia Gebremarkos, who has just released a hit album in Ethiopia, said Pitt was keen to know how AIDS had affected the nation, where the average annual income is $100.

"He was very humble and really interested in the situation here," Tsedenia said. "We hope his popularity can raise awareness in the same way we are trying to. We need the support of people like him."

In Africa, 29.4 million people are living with the virus, which has left 25 million children orphaned, according to United Nations figures. Bono has traveled the world spreading the message that more than 6,500 Africans die every day from AIDS, while 8,000 new people are infected daily.

Only about 50,000 Africans get potentially life-saving drugs, known as anti-retrovirals, while at least 4 million people need the drugs, which cost more than most Africans earn.

Gay Rights Groups Court N.J. Governor

From advocating for gay rights to pushing for stem cell research, life beyond the governorship appears to be full of possibilities for James E. McGreevey.

As the soon-to-be former governor contemplates a future that begins with his resignation at midnight Monday, his options are seemingly wide open: advocates are courting him to take up their causes, and he has already agreed to be a volunteer for a national education organization, said his friend, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak.

"After Thanksgiving, we're going to sit down and talk about what he's going to do with the rest of his life," Lesniak said Tuesday, a day after the governor gave a farewell speech. "There are no plans beyond that."

The Democratic governor announced his resignation on Aug. 12 during a now-famous speech in which he acknowledged being gay and having an affair, declaring "My truth is that I am a gay American."

Some personal concerns are on the governor's upcoming short list: tending to his ill parents, helping his wife and daughter move into their new house in Springfield and taking a little time off.

"A lot of healing has to go on in that family," said Lesniak. "They want to use this to get closer as a family, not farther apart. There was a barrier before because of the governor's denial of his sexuality."

As a Georgetown-educated lawyer with a master's in education from Harvard, McGreevey has an enviable educational pedigree. But he also comes from modest means _ his father was a Marine drill sergeant and his mother a nurse _ so whatever he winds up doing "he has to earn a living," said Lesniak.

"The governor has never thought much of his economic welfare and he's not a flashy guy, so it's not high on his priority list. But it has to be a consideration," Lesniak said.

Gay rights groups would love to have him take up their cause. Stem cell research proponents are already knocking at his door. McGreevey was instrumental in establishing a stem cell research center in New Jersey.

Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the gay rights group Empire State Pride Agenda, said the nation's only openly gay governor would be a welcome spokesman for gay and lesbian issues. McGreevey appeared at the group's fund-raiser after coming out.

"I've spoken to the governor and told the governor in the next several months when he settles down, I think his is going to be a powerful voice for (gay) issues," said Van Capelle.

Michael Adams, spokesman for the gay civil rights group Lambda Legal, said McGreevey's tarnished 35-month tenure would not taint his star power within the gay community or among other special-interest groups.

"The reality is we're a country that believes in rebirth and people moving beyond prior mistakes," Adams said. "Any community would look to `what kind of contribution are you willing and able to make moving forward,' not what have you done previously."

In the three months since his bombshell announcement, the governor has tried to build a legacy _ issuing executive orders banning companies that do business with any state agency from making campaign contributions and establishing needle exchange programs in three New Jersey cities with high rates of HIV infections.

The governor has already decided to embrace educational issues after he leaves office and has accepted a nonpaying position advocating for education reforms on behalf of a national education group, said Lesniak. He declined to name the group.

All kind of options remain for the one-time political star of the Democratic Party.

"The question isn't whether people will want to work with Jim McGreevey, it's a question of where Jim McGreevey will want to put his gifts," said Van Capelle.