New Delhi, Aug 11 - Over 90 percent of men having sex with men (MSM) in Asia Pacific, including India, do not have access to HIV prevention and care, and if interventions are not urgently intensified the spread of the disease among this section will escalate sharply, a UN agency said Tuesday.

'Moreover, legal frameworks across the region need a dramatic and urgent overhaul to allow public health sectors to reach out to MSM, or the public health consequences could be dire,' the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said in a statement.

This warning came at a high level symposium - Overcoming Legal Barriers to Comprehensive Prevention Among Men who have Sex with Men and Transgender People in Asia and the Pacific - as part of the ongoing International Congress on AIDS held at Bali, Indonesia, and co-hosted by the UNDP.

Minister of State for Health Dinesh Trivedi leads the Indian delegation at the Aug 9-13 event. India is home to at least 2.3 millions homosexuals.

Speakers discussed how effective and comprehensive HIV prevention among MSM and transgender (TG) people can occur only when a conducive and enabling legal environment is created.

'In order to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support and realize the Millennium Development Goals, we must facilitate an enabling legal environment and human rights based HIV policies and programmes for MSM and TG,' said Jeffrey O'Malley, global director of UNDP's HIV Group.

'This will mean stepping up our investment in legal and social programmes which effectively address stigma and discrimination directed at MSM and TG.'

A 2006 survey of the coverage of HIV interventions in 15 Asia Pacific countries estimated that targeted prevention programmes reached less than 10 percent of MSM and TG, far short of the 80 percent coverage that epidemiological models indicate is needed to control the HIV epidemic.