New York – The East Timor government and the United Nations on Wednesday launched an AIDS awareness campaign on television, radio and print media, hoping the country can avoid the explosion in HIV/AIDS seen elsewhere in the region.

East Timor, due to gain official independence from Indonesia on May 20, has so far avoided an epidemic, but officials said social dislocation and cross-border migration, together with high unemployment, illiteracy among the rural population and low awareness about HIV meant there was a significant risk.

"East Timor has a unique opportunity to prevent an epidemic of HIV/AIDS, but only if all the key stakeholders act together in a coordinated manner," UNTAET chief Sergio Vieira de Mello said in a statement. "This is the only way to make sure that this epidemic--which is already ravaging other parts of Southeast Asia--will not take a strong hold in East Timor."

East Timor's Vice Minister for Health, Joao Martins, said preliminary estimates showed the rate of HIV infection at 0.64% of people of reproductive age. Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar have HIV rates of more than 1%, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The government and UN applauded the influential Catholic Church for its cooperation in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The church has established its own programme to raise HIV/AIDS awareness.