Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan delivered a lecture to medics on Wednesday night, Nov 10, saying that while the AIDS problem was not as dramatic in Singapore as elsewhere in Asia, the number of new cases in the city-state was doubling every three to four years.

From 64 new AIDS cases in Singapore in 1993, the government expects more than 300 new cases this year and in excess of 1000 in 2010.

"What is more, this is only the tip of the iceberg," Balaji said, citing World Health Organisation figures estimating 4000 Singaporeans had HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.

"If we do not act, by 2010, we may have more than 15,000 HIV persons in Singapore," he said. "We are facing an alarming AIDS epidemic in Singapore."

While the numbers are small compared with the millions of AIDS and HIV cases in nations such as China and India, Singapore has a population of just three million, plus about 1.3 million foreigners living in the city-state.

Balaji emphasised that this year would for the first time see the number of new AIDS cases exceeding 100 per million of the population.

He said Singapore was fortunate that HIV had not entered the mainstream population in a big way, with the disease generally limited to two distinct groups of men -- homosexuals and heterosexuals who had sex with prostitutes.

"Of the two, the gays are the bigger concern," Balaji said, citing health authority figures showing the number of new cases of homosexual men with AIDS had risen from 54 in 2003 to 77 in the first 10 months of this year.

"This recent explosion of cases is due to the promiscuous and unsafe lifestyle advocated and practiced by some gays," he said.

Balaji criticised a local non-government organisation that does AIDS prevention education and a prominent regional gay website started up by a Singaporean for not doing enough to promote safe sex.

In regards to the heterosexual men who contract HIV by having sex with prostitutes, Balaji said they mainly did so when they were in other countries.

"Fortunately 70 percent of them do not have a Singaporean spouse. (But) many are poorly educated. Spreading the prevention message is difficult to them," he said.

Sadasivan said one option being considered was to screen high risk Singaporeans when they returned home from the other countries.

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