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Encyclopedia of AIDS pp 1–14Cite as

South, Southeast, and East Asia-Specific Characteristics of HIV/AIDS Epidemic

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Definition

An estimated five million people are living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in Asia as of early 2015. While the characteristics of the HIV epidemic in Asia vary from country to country, there are four major transmission routes, including commercial sex work, unprotected sex with commercial sex workers, needle sharing among persons who inject drugs (PWID), and unprotected sex among men who have sex with men (MSM) (AVERT 2015).

Overview

Compared to Africa, the Americas, and Europe, the HIV epidemic in Asian countries started a decade later. In the early to mid-1980s, while other parts of the world began to tackle the severe HIV epidemic, Asian prevalence rates were exceedingly low, though this changed quickly in the early 1990s. Although the overall HIV prevalence is still much lower compared to countries in southern Africa, Asia’s huge population makes the absolute number of PLHIV large.

With declining rates of transmission among PWID due to expanded needle/syringe exchange and, in...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vanderbilt Institute of Global Health, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA

    Chen Zhang

Authors
  1. Chen Zhang
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Correspondence to Chen Zhang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Cell & Molecular Biology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Thomas J. Hope

  2. University of California, San Diego Dept. Pathology, La Jolla, California, USA

    Douglas Richman

  3. Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA

    Mario Stevenson

Section Editor information

  1. Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, Yale School of Public Health, 60 College St., Rm 212, PO Box 208034, 06510-3201, New Haven, CT, USA

    Sten Vermund M.D., Ph.D.

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Zhang, C. (2017). South, Southeast, and East Asia-Specific Characteristics of HIV/AIDS Epidemic. In: Hope, T., Richman, D., Stevenson, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of AIDS. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9610-6_172-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9610-6_172-1

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