- 18 Oct 2004
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From the Washington Post:
TOKYO -- A rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use.
Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll.
Many also fear a silent AIDS epidemic is brewing among the nation's sexually active middle- and high-schoolers. Other sexually transmitted diseases _ chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and the human papillomavirus, or HPV _ are also on the rise.
"Japan is on the brink of going under," says Dr. Tsuneo Akaeda, a gynecologist who raises AIDS awareness by offering free 15-minute blood tests in Tokyo's nightclubs and streets. "They're ignoring that they have diseases, they're ignoring that they are sick."
The official toll of 10,070 HIV/AIDS sufferers in a nation of 127 million people pales next to some countries. Even if the actual figure is closer to 40,000, that would mean roughly 1 in 3,000 are infected, compared to about 1 in 100 in Thailand or 1 in 1,500 in China, according to estimates by UNAIDS, the U.N. body waging the global war on AIDS.
But many in Japan are alarmed at the dangerous mixture of chronic underreporting of cases, a sexually freewheeling youth culture that's less inclined to use condoms or other protection, and the powerful social stigma of a sexually transmitted disease.
TOKYO -- A rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use.
Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll.
Many also fear a silent AIDS epidemic is brewing among the nation's sexually active middle- and high-schoolers. Other sexually transmitted diseases _ chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and the human papillomavirus, or HPV _ are also on the rise.
"Japan is on the brink of going under," says Dr. Tsuneo Akaeda, a gynecologist who raises AIDS awareness by offering free 15-minute blood tests in Tokyo's nightclubs and streets. "They're ignoring that they have diseases, they're ignoring that they are sick."
The official toll of 10,070 HIV/AIDS sufferers in a nation of 127 million people pales next to some countries. Even if the actual figure is closer to 40,000, that would mean roughly 1 in 3,000 are infected, compared to about 1 in 100 in Thailand or 1 in 1,500 in China, according to estimates by UNAIDS, the U.N. body waging the global war on AIDS.
But many in Japan are alarmed at the dangerous mixture of chronic underreporting of cases, a sexually freewheeling youth culture that's less inclined to use condoms or other protection, and the powerful social stigma of a sexually transmitted disease.