Publications

The reported number of PLHIV in 2008 was again a record high at 1,126 cases. The number of newly reported PLHIV cases over the past five years represents 45.2% of the total. 1,033 cases were Japanese nationals and 93 cases were foreign nationals. In terms of exposure routes for the reported PLHIV cases in 2008, 779 cases (69.2%) were caused by homosexual sexual contact and 220 cases (19.5%) by heterosexual sexual contact, making a total of 999 cases (88.7%) by sexual contact. Age ranges centered on the 20-39 group (70.3%), with both Japanese and foreign nationals seeing most reports in the 25-34 age range for males and the 20-24 age range for females.

This paper will explore that proposition and discuss the future of the Thai epidemic by presenting revised HIV projections that incorporate new data on changes in sexual behaviors among heterosexual men and women in Thailand collected from The National Sexual Behavior Survey of Thailand 2006 (NSBS 2006). This new projection will also take into account expected changes in risk behaviors in both commercial and casual sex from 2007 until 2020. This revised scenario will then be compared to the current national HIV projection to illustrate the impact that heterosexual behavior changes are likely to have on the epidemic.

In 2007, it was estimated that there were 4.9 million people living with HIV in Asia, of whom 440,000 became newly infected in the past year and approximately 300,000 died from AIDS‐related illness (#UNAIDS, 2008a). While overall prevalence of HIV in Asia is lower than in certain other parts of the world, particularly Africa, there is a large variation in HIV prevalence within Asia – from almost 0%, up to 2.4% recorded in the Papua province of Indonesia (#UNAIDS & WHO, 2007).

The Philippines is one of the world’s largest and best organised source countries for human labour migration. There are an estimated over 7 million Filipinos overseas at any point in time working in more than 160 countries, with an additional 1.3 million undocumented Filipinos working abroad. The migration profile is gradually changing to include not only less skilled workers ‐ such as domestics, construction and factory workers ‐ but also highly skilled workers and particularly healthcare professionals.

This report synthesizes data from surveillance, behavioral surveys and published and unpublished research to better understand emerging patterns and trends in the HIV epidemic in Bangladesh. Taking stock of 20 years of experience with HIV in Bangladesh, this report summarizes what is known about the coverage and impact of HIV prevention services, including knowledge on risk and protective behaviors.

The Hong Kong STD/AIDS update is a composite report on HIV/AIDS reporting and STI caseload statistics published 3 monthly. The current issue has the updated information up to December 2009.

The Pacific is a unique and vulnerable region. It spans a third of the world’s surface and accounts for just 0.14% of the world’s population—with a similar proportion of the global burden of HIV. For Pacific countries, even a small number of people living with HIV can translate into high incidence and prevalence rates that can have devastating impacts on individuals, families, communities and economies. These challenges demand greater global attention. Pacific countries are often included in broad Asia–Pacific regional groupings where the magnitude of the problem in Asian countries overshadows the challenges and needs of smaller Pacific countries. Even the more-developed countries of the region are not immune to significant challenges to human development, compounded in recent times by the global financial crisis. These Pacific realities led to the constitution of the Commission on AIDS in the Pacific in October 2007 to examine the current scale of the HIV epidemic in the region. The Commission also examined how the Pacific’s response has changed over the past decade and how this momentum can be strengthened.

The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) has been facilitating consultations with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences (UNSRVAW) since 1995, following the inception of the UNSRVAW mandate and appointment of the first Rapporteur in 1994.  The theme of the 2009 consultation was 'Violations of Women's Sexual and Reproductive Rights'. Fifty four women, and one man, from twenty one countries in Asia Pacific came together to affirm women’s sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental human rights. In doing so they claimed women's autonomy to make decisions on issues concerning their own bodies and sexuality.

The article examines the extent to which an existing sex work typology captures human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk in Karnataka and propose a systematic approach for devising evidence-based typologies. The proposed typology identifies street to lodge FSWs as being at particularly high risk, which was obscured by the existing typology that distinguishes between FSWs based on place of solicitation alone.

In the summer of 2009, the author visited a humble orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. Here, like many parts in the world, the very existence of marginalized people with stigmatized illness is hidden away. Relegated to the shadows of society, these children lacked something more fundamental than housing, shelter, nutrition and medications. They lacked families to love and care for them unconditionally. One might think it self-evident that a visit to an orphanage for children with HIV would be profound, but the profundity wasn't where he expected to find it. It was in how the children had created their own family, loving each other like brothers and sisters, and the way the priest who operated the shelters was more than a Father, he was a dad to dozens of children. This is an account of love as harm reduction in the Mai Tam orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City.