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FAIR Foundation March 2005 Newsletter

Japan's AIDS experts alarmed as HIV infections hit record high

Agence France-Presse
Shino Yuasa

TOKYO (AFP) - The number of Japanese people who were infected with HIV or developed AIDS topped 1,000 for the first time in 2004, officials said Thursday, voicing concern the virus could be spreading more quickly due to a lack of awareness.

New HIV infections in 2004 jumped 17 percent year-on-year to 748, the highest figure since Japan registered its first AIDS patient in 1985 although still low by global standards, a health ministry survey showed.

The number of HIV patients who developed AIDS last year also hit a record high of 366, up 8.9 percent from a year earlier, it said.

The new infections bring to 6,528 the number of people in Japan who have tested positive for HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, with 3,258 of them living with AIDS.

But health ministry official Masanori Suzuki said the government estimated the true figure of HIV-positive Japanese was around 14,000 as many people never came in for diagnosis.

"It is very alarming. We must launch more aggressive and vigorous campaigns to make people aware of AIDS issues," Suzuki said of the 2004 figures.

"Since AIDS has a long latency period, people just don't realize their HIV infection. Early detection is a key to effective AIDS prevention," he said.

Of the 748 newly infected people, men accounted for 90 percent and over 60 percent of them were infected through gay sex, the survey said.

"The number of infected people is rising too fast. We are particularly alarmed by the indifference among young people toward AIDS. We really need to educate them," said Yorimasa Nagai, director of Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention.

Japan offers free and anonymous AIDS tests at public health care centers and Nagai said the foundation and the government must urge more people to take the examinations.

But despite the alarm, the AIDS epidemic is far lower in Japan than in most parts of the world. The United States, with about twice Japan's population, has seen an average of 40,000 HIV infections annually over the past 10 years, according to the UN AIDS body.

Japan is also out of global norms in that gay men dominate the new infections, with heterosexuals making up most new cases in other parts of the developed world.

Activists warn that the relatively low HIV rate has led Japanese people to be unconcerned about using condoms and taking other preventive measures, meaning that the country is vulnerable to a sudden rise in HIV infections.

According to health ministry data, domestic sales of condoms have sunk 43 percent from the peak in 1980 of 737 million to 419 million in 2003.

Other parts of Asia have far larger populations with HIV, with both unprotected sex and needle use attributed as causes.

China estimates some 840,000 people were infected with HIV in 2003, but international AIDS experts say the actual number is much higher.