Teenagers are increasingly shirking their parents' "Asian values" by having premarital sex, often with multiple partners, regional health authorities in nations including Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia have told AFP.

And although some governments have begun to react by implementing education programmes and launching school and community campaigns, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says existing initiatives are not enough.

"There needs to be bigger political commitment, more education and information and more resources for care and treatment," WHO's Western Pacific advisor on HIV/AIDS, Bernard Fabre-Teste, told AFP this week.

He said many governments in Asia were just beginning to pay attention to the problem and highlighted China as one of the most important nations that was still in its infancy stages in educating its youth about HIV and AIDS.

Fabre-Teste's comments followed a WHO report in January that warned Asian youths lacked the knowledge to avoid risky behaviour that could lead to HIV infection.

"Social norms regarding sexual activity and sexual behaviour have changed, but the environment to support the adolescents to face these changes has not," WHO Western Pacific director Shigeru Omi said in the report.

The report cited studies showing 23 percent of Filipinos aged between 15 and 24 years had engaged in premarital sex, 70 percent of them without the use of contraceptives.

In Vietnam, a separate report in 2003 by the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said a survey among youths aged 15 to 24 showed only 26.3 percent had basic knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention.

The survey found only half of the males and a third of the females used a condom in their last sexual intercourse with a non-regular sexual partner.

Despite the concerns of the WHO about a lack of education, there are many positive examples of health organisations and governments around the region working to improve awareness about HIV and AIDS.

In Cambodia, for example, non-governmental organisations such as World Education are working with the Ministry of Education to implement sex education programmes in most of the country's middle and high schools.

The programme focuses on responsible behaviour, such as using condoms, respecting one's partner and resisting peer pressure, UNAIDS country coordinator for Cambodia Geeta Sethi told AFP.

"We teach them about peer pressure and making their own decisions, such as whether you should go to sex workers or not," she said, adding there were plans to extend the programme into primary schools.

Cambodia has one of the highest HIV infection rates in Southeast Asia with 2.6 percent of its population suffering from HIV/AIDS. Studies have shown that up to 25 percent of Cambodian males aged 20 to 25 have visited a sex worker.

But health experts have found that knowledge does not necessarily end risky behaviour, with Malaysia offering an example of the complacency and other problems that occur among a more educated youth.

"A large proportion of Malaysians are aware that having multiple sex partners will increase their chances of getting HIV, that premarital sex puts them at risk of contracting the virus, but people still do have unprotected sex," HIV/AIDS advisor for UNAIDS Malaysia Angeline Ackermans told AFP.

This is because most reported cases involve high-risk groups, such as sex workers and drug users, so the general population does not associate itself as being vulnerable to the disease, she said.

Similarly Singapore's youth are highly educated about the issue, with sex education part of the school syllabus for all students, but there is community concern that many youths seem not to care about the risks of contracting HIV.

A study conducted by Nanyang Technological University study last year found that only slightly more than a third of undergraduates who had premarital sex consistently used a condom, while one in 10 did not use protection at all.

Melissa Lim, a social worker with Student Care Services in Singapore, told AFP she had encountered teens as young as 13 who, despite fear of getting pregnant, still had unprotected sex.

"Among the teens, they think they are not likely to get (HIV), they won't be the unlucky one. The main fear among them is getting pregnant and being found out," she said.

TERRA.WIRE