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Country Profiles 
Myanmar
Myanmar
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Country Profile
Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is still in a state of concentrated HIV epidemic though the decreasing trend of HIV prevalence in the general population has been observed since 2001 after reaching the peak of 0.9% in 2000. HIV prevalence in 2007 was estimated to be 0.7% and it is the third highest among the countries in South-East Asian Region. The first case of HIV was detected in 1988 and the estimated number of people living with HIV in 2007 was 240,000 with a range of 160,000 to 370,000.
Based on AIDS case reporting in 2005, it has been estimated that 67 percent of cases were attributable to sexual transmission, and 30 percent to injecting drug use and the remaining 3 percent of cases may be attributed to vertical transmission and transmission through the blood and blood products or through unsafe injection practices. HIV prevalence varies depending on geographical distribution and the lowest rates of HIV infections are reported in the West of the country and the highest in the East. The male to female ratio has changed from almost 8 to 1 in 1994 to 2.2 to 1 in 2006, highlighting the possible shift of the epidemic and the vulnerability of women.
HIV sentinel surveillance system has been established since 1991 and the surveillance was carried out biannually until 1999. Then annual surveillance has been conducted since 2000 and seven types of population are selected as sentinel groups and these include: male STD patients, female STD patients, IDU, female sex workers, pregnant women, blood donors, and military recruits. The group of female STD is no longer included in the sentinel group since 2004.
HIV prevalence is highest among people who inject drugs (PWID) throughout the years. Though it declined sharply between the period of 2001 to 2004, there was a gradual increase in the following years and stabilized around 40% in 2005 and 2006. The prevalence is the second highest among sex workers and it level off around 30% with little fluctuations since 2001.
In 2007, two new groups, MSM and newly diagnosed Tuberculosis patients were also included in sentinel groups. HIV prevalence is the highest among MSM (29%), followed by PWID (29%), female sex worker (16%), newly diagnosed TB patients (10%), male STI patients (5%), pregnant women (1%), new military recruits (1%), and blood donors (0.4%) respectively.