As of the end of March a total of about 8,000 people in Japan, excluding haemophiliacs, were infected with HIV, the virus that can develop into full-blown AIDS. Although this is lower than in many other countries, analysts predict that the number of HIV and AIDS cases will keep rising and could even breakthrough to 27,000 by 2006. [...] What particularly worries Oka is the increase in positive infection results for those who go in for free tests at public health centres. In 2000 a total of 107,266 people took the tests, compared with 108,911 in 2002, but the percentage of positive tests doubled from 0.116 per cent to 0.241 per cent during this period. In Tokyo's Shinjuku-ku, home to the Kabukicho red-light district, the rate climbed from 0.69 per cent to 1.113 per cent -- more than one out of every 100 people tested. [...] It seems that changes in moral attitudes and misconceptions in society among people who have contracted HIV are partly behind the increase.