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"Men Who Have Sex with Men Vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in Asia, but Widely
Ignored"
Associated Press (01/07/05)
In
Kobe, Japan, at the recent 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and
the Pacific, officials said that discrimination against men who have sex
with men (MSM) in the region is increasing their vulnerability to HIV. Steve
Wignall of Family Health International said that while there is a dearth of
accurate statistics on the issue, some surveys have found that the rate of
HIV infections among MSM was nearly 20 percent in Thailand, 14 percent in
Cambodia, and 8 percent in Vietnam. Reaching this population is difficult
due to social stigma and also because it includes men who sell sex to other
men but do self-identify as gay or bisexual.
Most Asian HIV-prevention programs focus on heterosexuals, such as female
sex workers. It is time for governments to begin education and treatment
programs targeting MSM, Wignall said, and to distribute condoms in the MSM
community. Yet many challenges confront such an effort. The government of
Vietnam does not formally recognize that MSM communities exist and depicts
homosexuality as a "social evil," said Le Cao Dung of the Ho Chi Minh City
provincial AIDS committee. Similar problems exist in China, while civil
strife in Nepal puts public health workers at risk.
In Japan, MSM account
for the majority of the nation's 12,000 HIV cases, but MSM and lesbians are
largely ignored and find speaking out difficult, said Hiromi Hatogai of the
Japanese outreach group OCCUR.
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