Introduction

This article provides a short summary of the current status of sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV epidemiology in the Asia-Pacific region. Information was requested from WHO as well as from STI experts in a number of major nations in the region. Reliable national STI notification statistics were not available from several of these countries. Figures 1 and 2 plot notification rates for gonorrhoea and syphilis in countries where such figures were available. Varying rates of notification and completeness of data make direct comparison between countries difficult. However, within country trends do provide an idea of the epidemics in the respective countries.

WHO estimates that in 2005 there were 7.39 and 32.69 million cases of Chlamydia trachomatis in South-East Asia (SEA) and Western Pacific (WP) regions, respectively.1 Estimates for gonorrhoea were 8.37 and 9.43 million cases, for syphilis were 11.77 and 2.54 million cases, and for trichomoniasis were 26.91 and 25.76 million cases for these SEA and WP regions, respectively. The corresponding 2005 incidence rates for chlamydial infections were 6.6 and 41.6 million, for gonorrhoea were 22.7 and 26.9 million, for syphilis were 2.9 and 1.1 million, and for trichomoniasis were 38.6 and 39.1 million, respectively. The total for these four infections was 70.8 million for the SEA region and 108.7 million for the WP region giving an overall total of 179.5 million. The …