Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Tuesday, December 1, 1998
Joji Sakurai, Associated Press Writer
In Japan, the Health Ministry organized rallies and charity concerts in a central Tokyo square to publicize the threat of AIDS and demonstrate support with those suffering from the disease.
"It's extremely important to have an event every year to repeatedly remind people that AIDS exists," said Dr. Yoshiki Sakurai, an official of the Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention.
Discrimination against AIDS sufferers remains powerful in Japan, and the country still lags behind many Western countries in AIDS treatment facilities and education, Sakurai said.
China is bracing for a fourfold rise in AIDS cases within two years and putting in place a 12-year plan to try to slow the rapid increase, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
Although China has officially recorded 11,170 HIV cases, Health Ministry officials estimate that more than 300,000 Chinese have the disease. Xinhua said that number is expected to swell to 1.2 million by 2000.
In Hong Kong, bars, restaurants and nightclubs handed out coasters encouraging safe-sex practices. The effort was part of a three-week AIDS awareness campaign organized by the group, AIDS Concern.
The coasters feature pictures of a fluorescent condom on one side, with a safe sex message on the reverse side. One version of the coaster reads: "Do it safely; use a condom every time."
Aids Concern also distributed 5,000 condoms at subway stations during the morning rush hour.
Experts have warned recently that while powerful new drugs have sent AIDS deaths plunging in industrialized countries, the disease continues to kill millions of people in the impoverished nations of Africa and Asia.
President Clinton planned to mark AIDS day with the announcement of $10 million in emergency grants to help poorer nations care for children orphaned by AIDS.
According to a new U.N. report, about 33.4 million people around the world are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Two-thirds of the afflicted are in sub-Saharan Africa, where 2 million people will die of the disease south of the Sahara this year, four times the total for the rest of the world.
Adult HIV infection rates in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are between 20 percent and 25 percent, the United Nations says.
About 1.7 million people in Africa and 700,000 people in Asia and the Pacific are infected with HIV every year, according to U.N. figures.
The Cambodian government marked AIDS day with the grim announcement that 150,000 people -- 1.3 percent of the population -- are infected with the AIDS virus.
Officials said that 50 to 70 people contract HIV in Cambodia every day, the highest HIV infection rate in Asia.
The economic crisis sweeping through Southeast Asia has made it even more difficult for governments in the region to curb the spread of AIDS.
On the eve of AIDS day, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa launched a plea at the United Nations for governments around the world to contribute more funds to the worldwide fight against AIDS. "We aren't doing enough to say to governments, `For goodness sake, why have so much money for death and so little for life?"' Tutu said
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