HIV in Asia

HIV in Asia remained almost dormant, when it already had become a subject of concern for most western nations in the early eighties. However, it was from the nineties that HIV in Asia started spreading its tentacles to get strong footings in the continent, slowly increasing the number of its prey to 4.7 millions today. But unlike Europe, where the pattern of the growth of the disease has been more or less uniform, every Asian nation has a different story. Not all nations are equally vulnerable and not all are luckily immune. For example, Singapore, which is the seat of all economic activities in Asia, has the least number of reported cases in AIDS.

But, it predicts the possibility of some other dangerous epidemic in the next few years. While India, bears more than 2 million AIDS patients, despite its conservative lifestyle. Vietnam with 86,117,000 patients and Thailand, with 65,493,000, becomes the two worst affected nations in Asia.

HIV in Asia is commonly transmitted due to three main reasons:

• Unprotected Sex – Sex education is still a taboo in most developing Asian nations. As a result, many people do not, or are not comfortable to use condoms. Yet, they indulge in paid sex that leads further to transmission of the disease. 25% - 40% of Asian women caught this disease from men, who either had paid sex, or had homosexual relationships.
• Injecting drug use - This is a common phenomena is China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and North East India. The contaminated needles carry the virus and leads to propagation of the disease.
• Sexual relation between two men - This factor does not open up very easily due to the social norms in the continent. Hence no effective measures can be taken for those men who indulge in it. Thus the cases of AIDS multiply through this track.
• This results to the most unfortunate way of propagation of the AIDS, from a pregnant mother to her child. Unlike the Western Nations, Asia has a higher rate of reproduction resulting in high population. Thus, more infants are prone to inherit this disease from their HIV positive mothers.

It has been found that the genetic composition of the HIV virus is different in Asia. In fact, it may be said that the genetic composition of the HIV virus is different and unique in every nation. The one that is prevalent in Asia is HIV 1 virus with multi-region hybridization assay, with their subtypes, namely, B, C and CRF01_AE, along with their combination.

The Asian HIV/AIDS organization is the biggest body fighting for the cause in Asia. Other bodies include Asian AIDS/HIV archives, CARAM ASIA (Coordination of Action Research on AIDS & Mobility), SEA-AIDS and South and South East Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality. Apart from that, every nation has its own sets of organizations that look after the cause, at a national or a local level.

These organizations aim to impart sex education amongst the lower sections of the society, who are ignorant about HIV in Asia, but are sexually active (and are most vulnerable to this disease). They also conduct workshops, campaigns and rallies with sex workers, in order to increase their awareness about AIDS. These organizations also give economic, moral and social support to those who are living with HIV in Asia.