RANGOON, Burma -- Dada would have killed herself but she couldn?t afford a proper burial. An orphan with a broad, sweet face and downcast eyes, she recalled the horror of learning two years ago that she had HIV. She had been a prostitute since she was 15 and hadn?t saved enough for even a simple funeral, which according to her belief as a Buddhist was vital to reincarnation into a better life. So Dada kept on living. Now, at age 23, it is what is left of this life that frightens her. Friends and other prostitutes have begun wasting away from AIDS, unable to pay the staggering cost of antiretroviral drugs, and Dada admits with an awkward giggle that she expects the same fate. "I have no husband. I have no family," she whispered. "I have to stand on my own feet all by myself." The secretive Burmese government had long denied that this country had a major AIDS problem, but international health experts now say it is among the worst in Asia. With antiretroviral drugs for AIDS costing about 10 times a teacher?s monthly salary, few Burmese can pay for them. Fewer than 5 percent of those who need the drugs can get them free from the government and international agencies, according to U.N. estimates. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a Geneva-based foundation, had planned to expand funding to triple the number of HIV-positive people receiving subsidized medication. But in August, it canceled a program to fight the three diseases in Burma and ended $87 million in funding, because of new restrictions imposed by the military government on travel and the import of medical supplies.