Publications

This study aimed to estimate the magnitude of the STI problem in the general population and to provide data to improve RTI/STI case management guidelines. The study revealed that STI prevalence, particularly genital ulcer disease, remains low in the general population in the Philippines. However, young people have relatively high prevalence of genital chlamydial infection. The study also demonstrated moderately high prevalence of established risk behaviors such as men having unprotected commercial sex encounters. There is a need to provide new approaches and strengthen current STI interventions to sustain the low STI rates and lower chlamydial infections. The foregoing findings revealed that majority of the STI cases are asymptomatic. Since current laboratory tests are expensive and simple and cheap laboratory tests are still unavailable, there is a need to develop a strategy to reach and treat asymptomatic STI cases.

School-Based Healthy Living and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education (SHAPE) was initiated jointly by the Ministry of Education of the Government of Myanmar and UNICEF in 1997. SHAPE is a life skills project with a emphasis on prevention of HIV/AIDS and its related problems of STI and drug abuse. SHAPE implementation began in 30 townships during the 1998/99 school year and was expanded to 30 more townships in the two years that followed. Now SHAPE is being implemented in 104 townships. This assessment focused only upon the initial townships where results would be more apparent.

UNICEF developed the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) to monitor goals established at the World Summit for Children (WSC) held in New York in 1990. But it is also consistent with many monitoring needs of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), as well as those of the more recent World Fit for Children (WFFC) that many countries are now using for human development planning into the 21st Century. MICS was created especially to meet the needs of developing countries lacking reliable routine sources of statistics and/or experience in carrying out reliable household surveys to measure performance relative to the WSC and, now, the Millennium Development and WFFC Goals.

Situated on the Pakistan-Afghan border, Quetta is home to growing numbers of Afghan refugees. We studied HIV knowledge and risk behaviors among Pakistani and Afghani drug users between July 2001 and November 2001. Of 959 drug users, all were male and the majority used heroin. Most were Pakistani (84.8%), 14.9% were Afghani, and 0.3% were Iranian. Relative to Pakistani drug users, a higher proportion of Afghanis reported no formal education, homelessness, and unemployment (p < .001).  Afghanis were more likely to have used an opiate as their first illicit drug (16% vs. 7%, p < .001), to have ever injected (18.8% vs. 12.3%, p = .04), to report needle sharing (72.2% vs. 48.2%, p = .08), or to report a drug user in their family (p = .08). None of sexually active Afghanis had ever used a condom compared with 5.0% of the Pakistanis (p = .01). Only 4.3% of Afghans had ever heard of HIV/AIDS compared with 18.3% of Pakistanis (p < .001). Extremely low levels of HIV/AIDS awareness and high HIV risk behaviors were evident among drug users in Quetta, among whom Afghanis were especially vulnerable. Interventions to prevent transition to injection, needle exchange, and drug treatment are urgently required to prevent blood-borne infections.

With an HIV prevalence rate at 2.6% among the adult population aged from (15- 49 years), Cambodia is the country most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Asia-Pacific Region. It is more than 10 years since the first case of HIV infection was detected; to date, the Monitoring and Evaluation of this disease relies mainly on information from the Health Sector where the Demographic Health Survey (DHS), HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS), and Behavioral Sentinel Surveillance (BSS) remain the main sources of data.

The first cases of AIDS were reported in Nepal in 1988. Available epidemiological data in Nepal indicate a low-prevalence among the general population - ANC: 0.2% (1999), FP attendees 0.3% (1999), blood donors 0.48% (Kathmandu, 2001). As of March 2003, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has reported 635 cases of AIDS and 2,755 HIV infections.

Preparation/consultation process for the National Report on monitoring the follow-up to the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS Lao PDR, 08 April 2003.

This report gives the status of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh and the status of the indicators related to HIV/AIDS as part of the country’s obligations as a signatory to the Declaration of Commitment (DoC) signed in June 2001 at the UNGASS on HIV/AIDS.

The proposed generic reporting format is meant to assist National AIDS Councils (or equivalent) in drafting their national report to be submitted to the UN General Assembly on biennial basis as a follow-up to the Declaration of Commitment (DoC) signed in June 2001 at the UNGASS on HIV/AIDS.

HIV prevalence in the country during the period January-December 2002 based on sentinel surveillance data.