Global programme on AIDS. AIDS surveillance in the WHO Western Pacific Region
Releve Epidemiologique Hebdomadaire 68(50): 371-375
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0049-8114 PMID: 8305295 Document Number: 333025
World Health Organization Global Program on AIDS data are presented for the western Pacific region in terms of HIV testing, sexually transmitted disease (STD) patients, prostitutes, injecting drug users, and homosexual and bisexual men. These HIV surveillance figures for the region have been obtained through a variety of survey methods which are not always clearly specified including voluntary confidential testing, screened donated blood, and compulsory testing. Data should therefore be interpreted with caution. Only a few countries perform HIV sentinel surveillance using unlinked anonymous testing. Data are presented from selected HIV prevalence studies in the region over the period 1984-1992, but the overwhelming majority of studies were conducted during 1990-92. The level of HIV infection among STD patients in Australia, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines remains under 1%, but 4.2% among the 72 patients tested in Cambodia. Available information suggests that HIV has not yet spread among prostitutes in the region to the same extent that it has in some other countries even though sex industries catering to both local and foreign clients are quite well established. The highest prevalence of HIV infection among prostitutes was found in Toul Kork, Cambodia, where 18 of 127 prostitutes tested were seropositive, while infection is gradually increasing in Malaysia, up to 1.3% in 1991. HIV transmission due to injecting drug use is becoming an increasing problem in Malaysia where the prevalence of HIV in the subpopulation has grown from 0.14% in 1988 to 6.9% in 1991. Australia, however, still has the highest reported overall prevalence of HIV infection in the region. Recent studies of small samples of homosexual and bisexual men in Japan, Philippines, and Singapore found HIV seroprevalence in the range of 2.0-3.6%. The cumulative numbers of AIDS cases and AIDS-related deaths is presented in tabular format.