|
|
|
|
|
|
AIDS in
Asia |
by Yuyu Shen
AIDS is a serious
problem in
Asia
. As of 2005, about 8.3 million of Asian people are infected with HIV.
India
alone has 5.1 million of HIV infected people, which is the second largest
amount per country in the whole world. What bothers
Asia
the most is the spreading of HIV virus. Only two decades ago, most
countries in Asia had not experienced anything close to AIDS epidemic, now
many countries are having or about to have serious AIDS epidemic, and
South and
South East Asia
has the fastest new HIV infection rate.
Of course, as United Nation officials pointed out, the infection
percentage in
Asia
would never get as high as twenty or thirty percent, it would at most get
to somewhere around 1 to 2 percent by reasonable predictions. However,
with
Asia
’s large population, even very small HIV prevalence means large numbers
of people living with HIV. Any tiny increase of HIV prevalence means
another large group of people is infected.
Risky behaviors are one of the most important reasons for the spreading of
HIV infection in
Asia
. Shared drug injections and unprotected sex, often commercial, interplays
with each other and form the heart of new HIV infection in many places.
Commercial sex workers exist in many countries of
Asia
, the majority of them come from rural areas with very poor educational
backgrounds and almost no idea about HIV protection. Most people who do
drug injections use reused needles. In some cases, people who contracted
HIV through paid sex pass this virus to their spouses. This type of
infections is a growing problem in
India
.
Another characteristic of Asia is the large number of people that migrate.
In many Asian developing countries, such as
China
,
Vietnam
, or
India
, many people migrate back and forth around their country or neighboring
countries for a better living. Most of those migrating are in very
financial and educational disadvantaged situations. They tend to integrate
with commercial sex workers and therefore contract the HIV virus from
them. They also become the blind spot of governments’ AIDS
education.
The most special cases of all HIV infected populations is the peasants
that have HIV because of former commercial blood or plasma donations.
The treatment and
prevention of HIV and AIDS in Asia had great improvement this year, mostly
due to strong efforts in
Thailand
and
China
. However, continental wise, 85 percent of people needing treatment still
did not receive it as of mid-August 2005.
|
|
|
