Singapore's conservative attitude toward AIDS discussed
AIDS weekly plus 1999: 8
1999
PMID: 12294479 Document Number: 279055
871 of Singapore's 3.1 million people have been diagnosed with HIV since 1985. 90% of these people are male and more than 70% of them report that they were infected through unprotected heterosexual sex. In the context of a growing number of people with AIDS, the government of Singapore plans to begin promoting condom use rather than rely simply upon campaigns stressing the need to remain sexually faithful to one partner. The government plans to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS at the grassroots, and gradually include condom use in public campaigns which now focus upon avoiding casual sex. At Singapore's first national AIDS conference, participants shared studies which showed that although a majority of Singaporeans know that HIV/AIDS is largely transmitted through sex or the sharing of injection equipment in IV drug use, up to 40% worry that they can become infected in other ways, such as from a diseased person sneezing or coughing upon them.