In the early to mid-1980s, while other parts of the world were beginning to deal with serious HIV & AIDS epidemics, Asia remained relatively unaffected by this newly discovered health problem. By the early 1990s, however, AIDS epidemics had emerged in several Asian countries, and by the end of that decade, HIV was spreading rapidly in many areas of the continent.
Today, HIV/AIDS is a growing problem in every region of Asia. East Asia has been identified by UNAIDS as one of the areas of the world where ‘the most striking increases’ in the numbers of people living with HIV have occurred in recent years (along with Eastern Europe and Central Asia).1 Although national HIV prevalence rates in Asia appear to be relatively low (particularly in comparison with sub-Saharan Africa), the populations of some Asian countries are so vast that these low percentages actually represent very large numbers of people living with HIV. The latest statistics compiled by UNAIDS suggest that at the end of 2007, 5 million people were living with HIV in Asia.2
Various factors make Asia vulnerable to the spread of HIV, including poverty, inequality, unequal status of women, stigma, cultural myths about sex and high levels of migration.3 4 Some experts predict that Asia may eventually overtake Africa as the part of the world with the highest number of HIV-infected people. Others, however, argue that Asia’s epidemics are on a different trajectory to those found in Africa, as HIV infection in Asia is still largely occurring among members of ‘high-risk groups’, unlike Africa where HIV and AIDS are widespread amongst all sections of some countries’ populations.5
Although its useful to understand the overall impact that AIDS is having on the Asian region as a whole, there is no single ‘Asian epidemic’; each country in the region faces a different situation.
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