Rise in AIDS in Japan, Is This A Warning For Korea?
Yahoo News is reporting a sharp increase in the number of AIDS cases in Japan.
A rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use. Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll.
The overall reported total of infections isn’t to bad but there is fears that the real number is much higher:
The official toll of 10,070 HIV/AIDS sufferers in a nation of 127 million people pales next to some countries. Even if the actual figure is closer to 40,000, that would mean roughly 1 in 3,000 are infected, compared to about 1 in 100 in Thailand or 1 in 1,500 in China, according to estimates by UNAIDS, the U.N. body waging the global war on AIDS.
But many in Japan are alarmed at the dangerous mixture of chronic underreporting of cases, a sexually freewheeling youth culture that’s less inclined to use condoms or other protection, and the powerful social stigma of a sexually transmitted disease. Satoshi Kimura, head of the AIDS Clinical Center at the Tokyo-based International Medical Center, estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 people in Japan don’t know they have the virus.
It is the recent increase in cases that is a cause for alarm:
In 2004, a record 1,165 people were reported newly infected, up 14 percent from the previous year — the same percentage growth rate as in AIDS-hit areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS figures.
The total number of cases is thought to be doubling at a rate of every four years and could reach at least 50,000 by 2010, the Japan Center for International Exchange said in a 2004 report.
The virus appears to be spreading the fastest among males under 35. Transmission between gay men accounts for the majority of cases, but the health ministry’s 2004 annual AIDS report notes that infections among heterosexual and homosexual men are increasing at roughly the same rate.
That is really amazing that the increase last year in Japan’s HIV infection rate is similar to sub-Saharan African countries that are being ravaged by the virus.
How does Korea stand in regards to AIDS? Here is a Korea Herald report from last year:
On Oct. 20, health authorities reported that 455 people tested positive for HIV in the first nine months of 2004, raising the number of resident Koreans who have been infected with the virus to 2,994. The new cases represent a 14 percent increase over new cases in the same period the previous year. All 305 cases whose route of transmission has been determined were infected sexually: 51 percent heterosexual vs. 49 percent homosexual, according to the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Since 1985, when the nation’s AIDS epidemic began, 591 people died of AIDS, leaving the number living with HIV-infection at 2,403.
So Korea had a 14 percent increase equal to that of Japan which means Korea’s HIV infection rate is similar to sub-Saharan Africa also. Soldiers and expats you are not safe either:
In addition, 132 foreign residents were found to be HIV-infected: They are not included in the 455 figure. The number of foreign cases in the first nine months of 2004 was more than double the 59 foreign cases found in all of 2003.
Keep that in mind the next time you go to the club.
