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AIDS in India

Richard C. Holbrooke, one of America's top retired diplomats, fears India is failing to take a pending AIDS crisis seriously enough.

Mr. Holbrooke, now director of the Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS, this week told a conference in New Delhi that India must do more to educate its population of 1 billion people about safeguards against the spread of the deadly disease.

"Education means talking about sex and intimacy. These are difficult problems in any country in the world, not just India," Mr. Holbrooke told the conference of government and business leaders.

"But if you don't do it, millions of people will be infected and every infected person will die, even with treatment."

Mr. Holbrooke questioned the Indian government's official figure of 4.5 million people with the AIDS virus but predicted the number of cases would rise.

"India has the largest number of AIDS victims after South Africa," he said. "We have to speak frankly and openly to young boys and girls, 13 to 15 years old, and tell them how AIDS is really spread and how to avoid it."

Mr. Holbrooke is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Germany and a former assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs.