East Asia

China’s first AIDS case was reported in Beijing in 1985. Today, an estimated 700,000 people in China are living with HIV (0.1% of the adult population), but it’s feared that this number will increase dramatically in future years, as HIV spreads from the groups most at risk to the general population.⁵³ The most frequent modes of HIV transmission have been injecting drug use in southern and western China and unsafe practices among paid blood donors. Heterosexually transmitted HIV is occurring primarily in the eastern provinces of China, fuelled by an increasing commercial sex trade and by the large number of migrants moving to these provinces in search of labour. HIV has been identified in some urban areas among men who have sex with men but this population is stigmatized and is difficult to survey.

In 2007 an estimated 39,000 people died from AIDS in China.⁵⁴

Japan

In 2007, around 9,600 adults and children were living with HIV in Japan.⁵⁵ Data released by the Japanese government in February 2007 showed that annual numbers of new HIV infections and AIDS cases had risen to an all time high in 2006, to 914 and 390 people respectively.⁵⁶ The most prominent rise occurred among MSM, who account for around 60% of annually reported HIV infections in Japan.