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

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.

Currently 20 countries in the Asia Pacific region cosider gay sex criminal, and these laws often taken on the force of vigilantism, leading to abuse and human rights violations.

Even in the absence of criminalisation, other provisions of law violate the rights of these groups along with arbitrary and inappropriate enforcement, thereby obstructing HIV interventions, advocacy and outreach, and service delivery.

According to Anand Grover, director of the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit in India and UN special rapporteur on the Right to Health, 'there have been a number of success stories in the region which give us hope. Courts in Nepal, India and Pakistan have been instrumental in recognising and upholding the rights of sexual minorities.

'This means that they will no longer be considered criminals in accessing life-saving prevention, care and treatment services. We hope that other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and across the globe will follow suit.'