Key findings
- By early 1997, South and South East Asia accounted for an estimated 5.2 million (23%) of the 22.6 million adults and children living with HIV infection in the world. About one third of adults living with HIV infection in the region are female.
- The estimated prevalence of HIV infection in the 15 – 49 year age group varies from zero in Korea to one per several thousand in most countries in the region, including Australia, to 2-3% in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand. As the HIV epidemic in the region is still relatively recent, HIV disease, including AIDS, is only beginning to occur.
- HIV epidemics in the Asia-Pacific region are diverse, localised and have different trends over time. Against this backdrop, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that the intensity of HIV epidemics associated with sex work, affecting both female sex workers and their clients, is primarily determined by the number of sexual partners per sex worker, the frequency of use of commercial sex by men, and such other factors as the rate of regular condom use in commercial sex and the magnitude and quality of the response to the epidemics.
- Although rapid transmission of HIV infection among injecting drug users and their sexual partners has been documented in the region, these epidemics have, to date, resulted in limited HIV transmission in the broader heterosexual population.