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Mexico accounts for around 11% of those living with HIV in Latin America . It is  estimated that 200,000 people are living with the virus in the country with the adult prevalence rate of 0.3%. Although the epidemic in Mexico remains concentrated and men account for around 77% of cases it could become generalized due to high-risk behaviours in the general population. There are signs that heterosexual transmission of HIV is increasing as more women are being infected.

The potential for HIV-tuberculosis (TB) co-infection is also a concern in Mexico, as it is in other countries. Studies have shown TB to be the second most frequent infection in AIDS patients in Mexico. It is more prevalent in urban centres among IDUs and individuals of lower socioeconomic status. ITF affiliates in Mexico are actively taking part in the national response to tackle the epidemic. Alianza de Tranviarios de Mexico recently organized awareness programmes on HIV/AIDS for its members. They also distributed educational materials among them. According to Rosa Maria Hernandez, HR and gender focal person of the union, “ ITF campaign on HIV/AIDS is surely helping our members as management is not doing much to tackle the epidemic.”

Vietnam is at a crossroads in its efforts to curb the spread of HIV. More than 290,000 people are living with HIV and an estimated 100 people become infected every day. With increasing numbers of men and women affected, the epidemic is no longer confined to high-risk groups. In fact, the majority of new infections are occurring through sexual transmission. While the government has stepped up its response and is taking a more progressive approach to curbing the epidemic, HIV still poses a very serious danger to the welfare and future of the country.

According to a survey report released recently by Vietnam's fishery programme, an estimated 33,000 of the total 5.5 million workers in Vietnam's fishery sector, or about 0.59%, were living with HIV in 2008. The report also predicted that the number of HIV-positive people in Vietnam's fishery sector could rise to 58,000 by 2013. According to a second survey, conducted simultaneously, a lack of knowledge about the disease has contributed to the fishery sector's relatively high HIV prevalence. Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as part of its Strengthening of Fisheries Administration conducted the survey with support from the Danish International Development Agency. The survey found that many lacked sufficient knowledge about HIV. About 14.4% of survey respondents mistakenly believed HIV could be transmitted through mosquitoes or sharing tools; about 6.4% believed that hugging or kissing could transmit the virus; and about 15.8% believed having unprotected sex with commercial sex workers carried no risk of contracting HIV. In addition, 17.3% of male fishery workers reported using condoms with commercial sex workers

Like many other African countries, HIV prevalence rate among truckers are very high in South Africa. According to Louis Hollander, the chairperson of Trucking against AIDS, about 45% of truck drivers are HIV-positive. A 2001 study by the South African Medical Research Council found that 56 per cent of long distance truck drivers in the Kwa Zulu-Ntal Midlands were HIV positive. At one truck stop in New Castle, 95 percent of those were found to be HIV positive. Recently “The Guardian” in one of its article reported that the numbers of women truck drivers are increasing in South Africa as HIV/AIDS is taking its toll of male truck drivers. The full report can be found at the following web link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/22/women-lorry-drivers-south-africa-hiv,

 To tackle this situation, Trucking against AIDS was launched in 1999 by the National Bargaining Council for the Road Freight Industry to create awareness of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections among trucking industry employees and sex workers. The organisation is made up of the bargaining council, which comprises of five unions, including the South African Transport Allied Workers Union (Satawu) and the Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Tawu), as well as employers in the trucking industry. Since the launch of Trucking against AIDS number of roadside wellness centres have been established in all provinces along the national trucking routes in South Africa so that truckers can access to information and treatment.

UNAIDS recently launched its outcome framework for 2009-2011 called joint action for results. The HIV organizational landscape has evolved and grown more complex over the past decade. UNAIDS, donors and civil society, including networks of people living with HIV, have rightly demanded greater clarity on the relationships between needs, financing, activities and outcomes. Also demanded is greater specificity about the role of UNAIDS and the Secretariat within the wider constellation of actors.

This Outcome Framework, which builds upon the UNAIDS Strategic Framework (2007–2011), will guide future investment and hold the Secretariat and the Cosponsors accountable for making the resources of the UN work for results in countries.

Under the Outcome Framework for the period 2009–2011, UNAIDS will focus its efforts on achieving results in eight priority areas. These priority areas have been selected based on a series of consultations with the cosponsors, communities, civil society and a broad range of other stakeholders, and their realization will accelerate the achievement of universal access. They can bring about even greater results in terms of wider developmental outcomes and thus contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. In our continuous efforts to support all countries to halt and reverse the epidemic, address its drivers and mount an effective response, major relevant strategies for combination HIV prevention, such as the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV, access to voluntary counselling and testing, nutritional support and addressing the particular needs of people in emergency settings, will continue to be strengthened. The priority areas are interlinked, and hence progress in one area will contribute to progress in others. In many cases, a single programmatic activity can promote action in more than one of the priority areas.

We can prevent mothers from dying and babies from becoming infected with HIV: By scaling up access to and the use of quality services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (+) as an integral part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for women, their partners and young people. This includes ongoing care and treatment for women, and their partners, and children in affected families.

We can ensure that people living with HIV receive treatment: By scaling up and sustaining treatment coverage and bridging the gap between sexual and reproductive health and HIV, integrating nutritional support within treatment programmes, increasing the number of skilled and equipped health workers and overcoming the irregular and inadequate supply of drugs and essential diagnostic tools.

We can prevent people living with HIV from dying of tuberculosis: By ensuring an effective integrated delivery of services for HIV and tuberculosis as well as nutritional support in all settings.

We can protect drug users from becoming infected with HIV: By making comprehensive, evidence informed and human-rights-based interventions accessible to all drug users (i.e. harm reduction and demand reduction) and by ensuring that legal and policy frameworks serve HIV prevention efforts.

According to a new report, “Drug Use, Sex Work and the Risk Environment in Dublin  recently released by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, one-fifth of commercial sex workers surveyed in Dublin, Ireland, are HIV-positive, while 78% of the surveyed group are living with hepatitis C. The report surveyed 35 drug users in the city who are or had been involved in the sex industry. The participants had an average age of 29. The report found that a majority of the sex workers surveyed, or 88%, were receiving methadone treatment but also using other drugs simultaneously.

In addition, the report included surveys of health workers, who said that it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach sex workers as they are becoming less visible in the city due to the increased use of mobile technology, such as the Internet and cellular phones, to contact clients.

 The lives of transport workers are universally characterized by spatial and temporal dislocation. In the process of constantly travelling from one point to another, transport workers are subject to the erosion of traditional community based interactions. They can thus become disconnected from their own life histories, and the families and communities of which they are a part.   Life on the road takes on its own shape, existing in a liminal state where things feel removed from reality.

On the road, it is therefore possible to step outside of life, with a consequence that usual prohibitions are suspended. Fatigue, loneliness and frustration coexist with the need for human connection and a quest for adventure.  It is the alteration of usual circumstances that allows people to engage in unsafe sexual and drug-taking practices that can lead to HIV infection. The liminality of life on the road combined with profound social stigma, and the associated fears of discrimination and persecution results in the silence of many HIV infected transport workers.

Throughout history, the human condition has best been understood through the personal story. Storytelling acknowledges that people are experts in their own lives, and that when they are telling stories about their lives, they are not spoken for by others. They are speaking for themselves, in their own voices.

The ITF in partnership with Narativ Inc initiated a pilot project to use story-telling methodology to break the silence, fear and stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. On May 4^th, 2009 forty members of the transport workers from different sectors including HIV positive workers sat in a circle and listened to one another tell stories of their experiences with being infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.  This Storytelling Ceremony marked the end of a pilot project in Mombasa, Kenya.

Over the course of the previous week, Narativ’s storytelling methodology was delivered through four one-day workshops to four groups of 8 to 12 people:

·         Group 1: Truck drivers and dockworkers, who are heavily stigmatized as the conduits of HIV in Kenya.

·         Group 2: Members of an HIV positive support group.

·         Group 3: Doctors and nurses for the Kenya Port Authority clinic.

·         Group 4: Members of the dockworkers’ union and ITF.   

Two months ago, when Narativ founder Dr. Murray Nossel, and ITF’s Dr. Asif Altaf began exploring Mombasa as a potential pilot location, only one person was openly HIV positive. During the final storytelling ceremony, 12 people came out publicly as HIV positive, making the decision to become public advocates. They told their stories to the assembled gathering. 

The pilot project led by Narativ and the ITF delivered a storytelling methodology that brought people both infected and affected by HIV together, breaking down ignorance, fear and silence through the sharing of their personal stories.  When asked about the impact of the Storytelling workshops, one participant said: “For those who felt shy or hesitated, this workshop removed the stigma that had been present for so long. If we speak out together with our stories, we can speed up the search for solutions to the spread of HIV/AIDS.”

Although AIDS gets less attention from the media in the UK than it did during the early history of the UK AIDS epidemic, it’s far from a problem of the past. According to the Health Protection Agency (HPA) Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre the epidemic has expanded, with the annual rate of new HIV diagnoses more than doubling between 1999 and 2003, and peaking in 2007. HIV prevalence in the UK is relatively low and currently stands at 0.2% of the population. HIV in the UK: 2008 report shows that at the end of 2007 there were an estimated 77,400 people living with HIV in the UK. During 2007 there were 7734 new diagnoses of HIV, a similarly high figure to the diagnoses made in each of the previous four years.According to the report, although HIV is often perceived to be a ‘gay’ problem, infections acquired through heterosexual sex account for the largest number of HIV diagnoses in the UK. The majority of people who acquired HIV heterosexually were infected overseas but only became aware of their status after being tested in the UK. In terms of HIV infections actually occurring within the UK, gay men and other men who have sex with men accounted for two thirds of new cases. 28% of HIV positive person in the UK does not know their status and almost a third (31%) of persons newly diagnosed with HIV were diagnosed late, that is at a point after which therapy should have begun (CD4 cell count less than 200 per mm³).

Despite the rising numbers of new HIV infections in the UK, public knowledge of HIV and AIDS appears to have declined. According to the UK National AIDS Trust (NAT) While 91% of people in the UK knew that HIV was transmitted through unprotected heterosexual sex in 2000, by 2007 this figure had fallen to 79%.

During the recent launching of a HIV/TB workplace project in Accra, Ghana's Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, called on private and public employers to create policies that would provide comprehensive care to employees living with HIV or tuberculosis, as well as their families. She said that people living with HIV and TB should receive support and information in their workplaces. She continued, "HIV has no national boundaries and is no respecter of the rich. Therefore, no country can afford to ignore the disease. Both private and public organizations should raise awareness about these diseases and address stigma and discrimination surrounding those living with HIV/AIDS.”

Currently Ghana’s HIV epidemic is stable. After Ghana’s first case of HIV was reported in 1986, the disease spread slowly but steadily until 2003, when prevalence peaked at 3.1 percent. According to the UNAIDS recent report, the total number of people living with HIV in Ghana is 260,000 and the prevalence rate among the adult population is around 2%. The disease also orphaned 160,000 children in the country.

Members of a new partnership project, designed to put HIV awareness on the seafaring agenda, set out a plan of action during a workshop held in ITF House, London from April 27-29, 2009.The group - the global partnership on HIV and mobile workers in the maritime sector – brings together representatives from eight organisations, including the United Nations, non-governmental organisations, unions and employers. It outlined its strategic aims at the ITF’s headquarters in London, UK, on 29 April, during a three-day meeting. During the event participants involved in the recently launched initiative ironed out plans for the projects structure, funding and activities.

The project will engage with seafarers directly to tackle high risk behaviour and transmission and raise awareness of the issue both nationally and internationally. The project will also address some of the structural and contextual issues that make seafarers vulnerable to HIV and AIDS. These include, for example, looking at ways of improving the quality of and access to health services at port clinics and lobbying employers to establish intervention in the workplace. It is also anticipated that a pilot programme working with Filipino seafarers will begin this year.

HIV/AIDS is an issue at sea, but it’s one that has not been aired the way that it has, say, among truck drivers. The ITF believes it is vital that all those who can help in that debate and in suggesting ways to tackle the virus and its effects, medical and social, come together to share their knowledge and experiences. This event has been a major step in beginning that process.

According to Natalie Shaw, ISF Secretary,  “By combining our efforts we best use the experience the parties have accumulated. We intend to utilise this joint expertise to signal the importance of this global issue and create approaches to prevention that build on successes

and ensure that seafarers and those who work with them receive unambiguous and consistent messages about the prevention of HIV.”

Dani Appave, ILO Senior Maritime Specialist, stressed the importance of social partners in communicating HIV/AIDS information, prevention and non-discrimination. “A comprehensive workplace approach to HIV/AIDS is needed to facilitate behavioural change and decrease HIV vulnerability among seafarers,” he stated.

Nebojso Nilokic, IMHA President, concluded: “We were sure of the need for a partnership because our past experience in HIV/AIDS prevention projects taught us that a holistic approach – bringing together agencies, unions, educators and a mix of skillsets – was needed.”

Rosilyne Borland, IOM Migration Health Officer, commented: “From here we go on to work together to decrease the number of new cases of HIV among seafarers. We plan to engage directly with them to address high risk behaviour and transmission in ports and on ships, as well as to increase awareness of the issue at national and international levels.”

HIV-positive people worldwide are at an increased risk of the H1N1 flu strain, the World Health Organization said recently in guidelines for health workers published on its web site. According to WHO, people with immune-deficiency diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, will be vulnerable to complications related to the flu strain, just as they are from the seasonal flu, which results in about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths annually. According to WHO, the H1N1 strain and HIV could prove to be a hazardous combination, similar to HIV and tuberculosis. "Although there is inadequate data to predict the impact of a possible human influenza pandemic on HIV-affected populations, interactions between HIV and A(H1N1) influenza could be significant," WHO said, adding that HIV-positive people "should be considered as a high risk and a priority population for preventive and therapeutic strategies against influenza, including emerging influenza A(H1N1) virus infection."

According to WHO, countries with high HIV/AIDS burdens, many of which are in Africa, should ensure that vulnerable people have drug access, including to ***** such as Tamiflu and Relenza. The agency added that it is best if people with the flu strain take antiviral drugs within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms.

According to UNAIDS reports, women overall now account for half of the population living with HIV in the Caribbean, compared with 30% in 1999. Women ages 15 to 24 accounts for 62% of the entire HIV-positive population in the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic and Haiti, which make up the island of Hispaniola, have some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the region, according to UNAIDS. Women account for 51% of the 60,000 HIV-positive people in the Dominican Republic, while they account for 60% of the 120,000 HIV-positive people in Haiti.
     
A recent study by Development Connections, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the World Health Organization found that 25% of women surveyed in the Dominican Republic in 2007 said they became sexually active before age 15 and 75% before age 19. Wendy Alba, a researcher involved in the study, said that additional studies in the Dominican Republic found that women who had experienced gender violence were nearly four times more likely to have a sexually transmitted infection than women who had not been abused.

On March 12^th, Kenya port authority (KPA) launched its workplace HIV and AIDS policy is a key tool to fight HIV and AIDS at the workplace. Mombasa port is a very strategic port in the region and is called “gateway to central and east Africa.” Around 6000 workers work in KPA. ITF affiliate, Kenya Dockworkers’ union played an important role in developing this policy and will also be involved in the monitoring of the implementation of the policy. The union has been implementing different education programmes for its members for many years. The formulation and launching of this policy is the result of THE long-standing advocacy effort of the union. 

The guiding principle of the policy is non-discrimination against employees, eligible dependents and job applicants in access to employment, training, promotion, employee benefits and access to services on the basis of their perceived or actual HIV status. According to Simon Sang, the General Secretary of the Dockworkers Union, " this policy will help us to fight stigma and discrimination at the workplace. The policy will ensure mobilization of resources to support and sustain HIV and AIDS programmes at workplaces. This policy does not only cover workers but also their dependents, and includes ARVs for all of them".  Around 500 workers and management personnel attended the launching ceremony. Peer educators of the union organized a number of awareness activities including drama; role-plays during the launching ceremony. They also distributed education materials. Medical department of KPA also organized a voluntary blood donation camp to mark this historic day where large number of workers donated blood. Safe blood transfusion is one of the important aspects of controlling the HIV epidemic.

According to a new study, HIV-positive people who do not develop AIDS and do not require antiretroviral medication could provide insight for new strategies in vaccine development. Michel Nussenzweig, the head of Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and author of the study said that, “only about one in every 1,000 HIV-positive people produces the neutralizing antibodies, the research attempts a new approach to HIV vaccine development by copying what exists in nature and that we know can work because of the long-term survivors." He added, "Instead of inventing something that doesn't exist, it's trying to copy something that does exist.” For the study, Rockefeller University researchers examined antibodies present in the blood of six long-term HIV survivors who appeared to have a degree of natural immunity to the virus. The researchers isolated 433 antibodies from the patients, all of which targeted HIV's protective outer coating, or "envelope." The researchers then cloned the antibodies and observed which elements of the envelope each antibody targeted and how effectively it neutralized HIV.

(Source Kaiser news network)

Female migrants from Asia have become "highly vulnerable" to HIV during the global financial crisis, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report which was recently released in Manila, the Philippines. In the midst of the global economic crisis, with rates of unemployment multiplying on a daily basis, the situation of migrant workers is under threat. When demand for labour wanes, those in the weakest bargaining position, usually temporary migrant workers and particularly the undocumented, will accept almost any conditions to hold on to their jobs. Based on almost 600 interviews in four Asian countries and three in the Arab States, the report, HIV Vulnerabilities of Migrant Women: from Asia to the Arab States, reveals the social, economic and health toll that migration imposes on emigrating women, particularly low-skilled women who are lured by job prospects. The Arab States are the primary destination for many migrant workers from south and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, *****stan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the countries that are the focus of the research. The host countries examined in the study are: Bahrain, Lebanon and UAE.

The report, a collaborative initiative of UNDP, UNAIDS, IOM and UNIFEM estimates that 70-80 percent of migrants from Sri Lanka and the Philippines to the Arab States are women. Between 1991 and 2007, 60 percent of women migrants from Bangladesh left to find employment in the Arab States. Remittances from Filipinos working in the Arab States in 2007 amounted to $2.17 billion. In Bangladesh, migrant workers sent back close to $637 million from the UAE. Current remittances by migrant workers from Sri Lanka amount to $3 billion. According to the report, “deportation of HIV-positive migrants by host countries and the absence of reintegration programmes in countries of origin can be devastating for the health, well-being, and livelihoods of migrants and their families.
According to Ajay Chhibber, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, “In this global financial downturn, we cannot forget the needs and rights of migrant workers who are such an integral part of so many economies. If they are found to be HIV positive, they risk deportation. Once returned to their home countries, they are unable to find work and face discrimination” 

According to JVR Prasada Rao, Regional Director of UNAIDS in Asia and the Pacific. “Although migration itself is not a risk factor to HIV infection, the conditions under which some workers migrate and their living conditions in the host countries make them highly vulnerable to HIV. In many cases, HIV testing in both countries of origin and host countries breaches migrants’ rights – testing is undertaken without consent, counselling, confidentiality or support”.

ITF-affiliated dockers’ union, Syndicat des Travailleurs du Port Autonome de Lomé (Syntrapal) in collaboration with employers, the port authority and local NGO organised a number of programmes to celebrate Valentines day.  The activities aimed to mainstream the HIV/AIDS awareness message. The events included performances of song, poetry and drama. The workers also distributed condoms and education material and organised education sessions.700 people turned out in Lome port to attend different events.  This initiative is an example of how trade unions can use social events and key dates in the calendar to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, as it is crucial that HIV/AIDS awareness is something that is promoted throughout the year.

The government estimates that nearly 180,000 people in Togo are HIV-positive as of 2008, about 3.2 percent of the total population. Some 60 percent are women, and almost 13,000 are children under 14. Recently the government has made life-saving antiretroviral medication (ARV) free. Anti-retroviral ***** distributed by the network of the Central Supply of Essential and Generic ***** (CAMEG) throughout the country. According to Augustin Dokla, who represents a network of HIV positive people,  “around 25,000 people will benefit from the measure up from 8,000 who already have access to the drugs from CAMEG.”

The number of newly recorded HIV cases in South Korea increased by about 7 percent in 2008, up to 797 from 744 in 2007, according to a report released recently from the Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The new cases in 2007 bring the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reported since1985 to 6,120. The report found that 93 percent or 743 of newly reported cases in 2008 occurred among men and that 7 percent occurred among women. 73 percent of the cases occurred among people ages 20 to 40. Twenty percent of the cases were recorded among teenagers and 56 cases occurred among people over age 60.  According to the report, 99% of the cases were transmitted sexually. An official with the Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said that HIV "now belongs in the category of chronic diseases, like diabetes and hypertension, which indicates that early inspection and treatment are being emphasized for those infected with the virus to maintain normal and healthy lives". 

Brazil is the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South America and accounts for around 60 percent of all AIDS cases in Latin America and the Caribbean. The first case of AIDS was recorded in Brazil in 1982, and whilst many countries have struggled to curb the spread of HIV and to care for those with AIDS, Brazil’s response has been seen as a success story. Working alongside civil society groups, the Brazilian government has made aggressive efforts to minimise the impact of the AIDS epidemic. By the end of 2007, 730,000 Brazilians were living with HIV, just over half the number that estimates in the previous decade had predicted. The number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses has also fallen by 50% and HIV-related hospitalisations have decreased by 70-80% since the late 1990s. At the beginning of the Brazilian AIDS epidemic, most of the people becoming infected with HIV were men who have sex with men (MSM). The majority lived in Brazil’s biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. HIV transmission through blood transfusion and blood products was also common. In 1986 HIV blood-screening tests were made compulsory at blood banks in São Paulo, and by 1988 this policy was implemented nationwide, signalling the start of a decline in HIV-transmissions occurring through these routes. As the epidemic progressed, increasing numbers of people became infected through heterosexual sex and injecting drug use.

In recent times, HIV prevalence among older women has increased significantly. Prevalence among women older than age 50 has more than tripled since 1996, from 3.7 HIV cases per 100,000 women over age 50 to 11.6 cases per 100,000 in 2006. A survey by the Ministry of Health revealed that although 55.3% of women between ages 50 and 64 are sexually active, only 28% are using condoms with casual partners, or men who are not regular partners. The government has launched a programme to target the population with a new prevention campaign, which coincides with festivities during Carnival. The government's prevention campaign will promote empowerment through insistence on condom use. It also aims to raise awareness among men and promote the "democratization of sexuality within relationships".  The slogan of the campaign, "Sex has no age limit, neither does protection" -- will appear in radio, television and print advertisements. According to Mariangela Simao, head of the national HIV/AIDS program, the government also plans to distribute 65 million condoms, 20 million more than what is distributed each month throughout the rest of the year during the Carnival season.

Nepal Yatayat Mazdoor Sangh, the ITF affiliate in Nepal has been involved in HIV/AIDS activities for some time and helping its members in their fight against the deadly diseases. During its recent national congress, the union passed a resolution on HIV/AIDS.  They put on a HIV/AIDS awareness stall in the congress venue and decorated it with posters from the ITF and ILO Nepal country office.  Trained peer educators conducted education sessions and distributed HI/AIDS related materials to around 300 congress participants.

Nepal faces increasing HIV prevalence among most at risk populations such as sex workers, injecting drug users (IDUs), men who have sex with men (MSM), and migrants. Nepal's poverty, political instability and gender inequality, combined with low levels of education and literacy make the task challenging, as do the denial, stigma, and discrimination that surround HIV and AIDS. It is estimated that 1.5 to 2 million Nepalese mitigates internally and externally for seasonal and long-term labour. It is necessary for the economic survival of many households in both rural and urban areas. Removal from traditional social structures can promote unsafe sexual practices, such as having multiple sexual partners and engaging in commercial sex. A 2002 study suggests that HIV prevalence is nearly 8 percent in migrants returning from Mumbai.

The first case of AIDS in Nepal was reported in 1988. By the middle of 2008, more than 1750 cases of AIDS and over 11,000 cases of HIV infection were officially reported, with two times as many men reported to be infected as women. However, given the limitations of Nepal’s public health surveillance system, the actual number of infections is thought to be much higher. UNAIDS estimates that 70,000 people were living with HIV at the end of 2007.

Malaysia is home to one of the rapidly growing AIDS epidemics in the East Asia and Pacific region with its current rate of HIV infections doubling every three years. Between the first detected case in 1986 and 2006, 76,389 people have been infected with HIV while 9,155 have died of AIDS. These statistics suggest that an average of 16 people test positive for the virus each day. Malaysia’s epidemic is largely dominated by injecting drug users who make up about 72% of total cases. In 2006, Malaysia has embarked on a five-year plan to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, launching a pilot needle exchange programmes for drug addicts. There is concern however that heterosexual transmission is on the rise.  The proportion of women reported with HIV has increased dramatically in the last decade from 4% of new cases in 1995 to 15% of new cases in 2006. Surveys show that in 2006, more housewives tested HIV-positive than sex workers. At the same time, the percentage of babies born with HIV has also increased from 0.2% in 1991 to 1.4% in 2006.

As in most parts of the world, young people in Malaysia account for an increasing number of HIV infections every year.  December 2006 statistics from the Ministry of Health reveal that 36% of infections are amongst people aged between 13 to 29 years old. It is likely that people infected with HIV before the age of 30 were infected in their twenties and sometimes even during their teens. Gender inequity, stigma, discrimination, silence, denial and ignorance fuel the epidemic in Malaysia. 

The Malaysian government recently announced a programme to include HIV testing during pre-marital courses for Muslim couples.  Da-Tuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, director general of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, said that couples who test positive for the virus will be permitted to get married and will receive counseling on preventive measures

Ukraine has one of the most severe HIV/AIDS epidemics in Europe, contributing to nearly 21 percent of the newly reported HIV diagnoses in the Europe and Eurasia region in 2006. Ukraine’s first case of HIV/AIDS was detected in 1987, and the epidemic appeared to be confined to a small population of foreign students until the mid-1990s, when a sudden and explosive epidemic emerged among injecting drug users in the southern and eastern regions of the country. With 1.63 percent of the adult population estimated to be HIV positive in 2007, HIV has been detected in every oblast (province) of the country. Kiev, the capital city, and some regions in southeastern Ukraine account for more than 70 percent of all registered HIV cases in the country. The annual number of HIV diagnoses has more than doubled since 2001.  In fact the number of cases increased 150% during the two-year period December 2001 to December 2003
Recent increases in condom prices in Ukraine have led some experts to express concerns about a possible corresponding rise in the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Since October 2008, the price of condoms in Ukraine has increased by 40% to 60%, possibly as a result of the declining value of Ukrainian currency. In addition, retailers and the country's only condom distributor have encountered difficulty-obtaining credit, and local condom producers have limited cash flow. The price increases could particularly affect young people in Ukraine because they are the country's major condom purchasers despite having the least money to spend.