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HIV/AIDS
in Asia
 While
not as high as rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, HIV infection in Asian countries
has increased by more than 100% since 1994, and some predict that Asia
will be at the center of this global epidemic in years ahead. Injection
drug use and the commercial sex industry have played a particularly significant
role in the increase of HIV infection in Asia.
- Roughly 6.3 million Asians
were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2000, and more than 3.1 million
have already died from AIDS.
- HIV prevalence in Asia
and the Pacific varies from country to country, ranging from 0% to 2
to 3% in the most affected countries.
- An estimated 700,000 adults
(more than half of them men) became infected with HIV in South and Southeast
Asia in 2000.
- In India, UNAIDS estimates
that 3.7 million people were living with HIV/AIDS at the beginning of
the millennium—more than in any other country in the world except
South Africa.
- In China, the epidemic
is primarily among injection drug users, sex workers, and recipients
of tainted blood. It is believed that a million people are infected,
and it is estimated that 20 million will become infected in the next
decade if action is not taken.
Again, prevention and education
efforts can have a profound effect in the face of these statistics. For
example, in Thailand, a “100% condom program” in commercial
sex establishments helped keep the epidemic in check during the 1990s.
HIV/AIDS
in Latin America and the Caribbean
 According
to UNAIDS, an estimated 150,000 adults and children became infected in
Latin America in 2000, and an estimated 1.3 million people in Latin American
countries are currently living with HIV.
- The northern countries
of Central America (particularly Honduras) appear to be the hardest
hit by HIV. One nationwide 1998 study in Honduras showed that 1.4% of
more than 2,700 pregnant women tested positive for HIV.
- Brazil, the most populous
country in the region, also has the largest number of people living
with HIV in this region: an estimated 540,000 people at the end of 1999.
Recently, Brazil has expanded life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy
to people living with HIV, with death rates decreasing as a result.
Although underreporting of
HIV/AIDS in this region makes estimation of the infection difficult, the
Caribbean in particular is the region hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in the world
outside sub-Saharan Africa.
- Approximately 390,000 adults
and children in the Caribbean were reported to be living with HIV/AIDS
as of 2000 (although due to underreporting, the real number could be
closer to 500,000). This represents 1.96% of sexually active adults,
four times higher than the prevalence in North America and Latin America.
- According to UNAIDS, an
estimated 60,000 adults and children became infected during 2000 in
the Caribbean.
- In some areas of Haiti,
13% of anonymously tested pregnant women were found to be HIV-positive.
UNAIDS estimated that 74,000 Haitian children had lost their mothers
to AIDS by the end of 1999.
- HIV rates are five times
higher in girls than boys aged 15 to 19 in Trinidad and Tobago. At one
center for pregnant women in Jamaica, young women in their late teens
had almost twice the prevalence rate of older women.
HIV/AIDS
in the countries of the former Soviet Union
 Although
the HIV/AIDS epidemic is newer in the former Soviet Union than in many
other parts of the world, there has been a steep increase in infections
in this region in recent years. Parallel epidemics of HIV, injection drug
use, and STIs are unfolding, with an increasingly greater number of people
at risk for HIV infection in this region.
- As many as 700,000 people in the former Soviet Union were estimated
to be living with HIV/AIDS by 2000, compared with an estimated 170,000
at the end of 1997.
- In the Ukraine, 70% of HIV infections reported were among injection
drug users. New epidemics in drug injectors emerged in Uzbekistan and
in Estonia, a country that reported far more HIV cases in 2000 than
in any previous year.
- The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russia is among the fastest growing in the
world.
© 2007 EngenderHealth
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