New Delhi, Aug 11 - The International AIDS Congress in Indonesia Tuesday hailed the Delhi High Court ruling decriminalising gay sex while advocating that countries must facilitate an 'enabling legal environment and human rights based HIV policies and programmes' for homosexuals and transgenders.

This pat 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 International Congress on AIDS at Bali, Indonesia, and co-hosted by the UNDP.

'In order to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support and realise the Millennium Development Goals, we must facilitate an enabling legal environment and human rights based HIV policies and programmes for MSM (male having sex with male) and transgenders,' said Jeffrey O'Malley, global director of UNDP's HIV Group in the conference.

'This very debate was at the heart of the recent landmark ruling by the Delhi High Court that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code unfairly discriminates against MSM and consenting adults in general,' the UNDP noted in a statement from Bali.

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, the statement said.

'The Delhi High Court ruling is a shining example of such an approach, where education and sensitisation of these different sectors was central to the success of the case,' said Shivananda Khan, another senior official at the AIDS congress.

Over 90 percent of 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, the UN agency said.