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The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), the ecumenical organization for most Christian churches in the region, has had a program on drug abuse since 1982. The Council's Unit of Education and Renewal holds meetings and workshops at the parish level, many focusing on drugs. Out of this work, a focus on AIDS also developed. In October 1992, a MECC-sponsored consultation was held in Cyprus, largely to discuss the link between drugs and HIV/AIDS. The conclusion was that Arab society needed to tackle the problem of AIDS before it was too late, particularly by addressing the underlying moral issues and strengthening family discipline to safeguard youth. Recommendations were made for further research into drug addiction and HIV/AIDS, more sensitive legislation to deal with these problems, greater cooperation, and greater objectivity in evaluating existing programs. Since the consultation, efforts have continued to strengthen the capacity of local health authorities to cope. Societies in the Middle East do not usually discuss openly topics defined as delicate or shameful. So, to initiate open discourse about drugs and HIV is, in itself, a significant achievement. The lead taken by MECC has had a liberating effect on parishes, which also now initiate programs on these sensitive topics., (full text)

As many as 10,000 Chinese may be infected with HIV, and 22 have died of the disease since China discovered its first case in 1985, an official report said. By the end of July 1994, 1453 people in China had tested positive for HIV. Of those, 1174 were Chinese citizens, 31 were overseas Chinese and 230 were foreigners. But Wang Youfa, of the China Xiehe Medical College, wrote in the Guangming Daily that HIV tests in China have so far been administered only among high-risk groups. "The actual infection rate is far higher. Chinese experts estimate that the (Chinese) mainland currently has 5000 to 10,000 HIV carriers," Wang said. He urged better control of disease, but proposed no specific measures. Most Chinese still have little knowledge of the disease and how it is spread. Some believe that they can catch it through dirty bed sheets or from underwear laundered by hotels or laundromats. The Chinese government long has characterized AIDS as a disease that strikes only foreigners or fringe groups such as drug users and homosexuals. Prevention measures were directed at foreigners coming to China and at Chinese with frequent contacts with foreigners. Chinese health officials were shocked in 1990 when they discovered 146 HIV-positive drug users in southwest China's Yunnan province. Since then, the figure has ballooned to 1133 cases, or 79% of the national total, Wang said. The province borders Burma, which produces much of the world's heroin, and has China's most serious drug problem. The report said the infection rate among Yunnan's intravenous drug users was as high as 78%. Drug users account for 66% of the HIV carriers. The virus has spread to 22 of China's 39 provinces, Wang said. Of the 40 Chinese citizens who have developed advanced AIDS, 22 have already died, he said. Non-Chinese citizens with HIV are deported from China., (full text)

Injecting drug use is being reported from an increasing number of Asian and other Third World countries. HIV continues to spread globally among and from populations of injecting drug users (IDUs), although the rate of spread appears to have slowed down recently in some industrialized countries. Asia produces two-thirds of the world's supply of opium. In recent years the rapid development of new illicit drug trade routes in efforts to evade detection by law enforcement authorities has exposed new populations in Asia to drug injecting and, thus, the risk of HIV infection. Epidemic spread of HIV has recently commenced in some Asian countries among injecting drug users, and others are at substantial risk of an HIV epidemic among their IDU populations. The speed of spread and the consequences of HIV infection among IDUs in Asian and other Third World countries are even more profound than in western countries. Asian countries attempting to control this component of the epidemic often have greater difficulty than industrialized countries because of their proximity to drug producing areas, scarcity of resources and a greater likelihood of pragmatic policies conflicting with traditional values. Vigorous efforts are urgently required at both a national and international level to raise awareness of the consequences of an uncontrolled epidemic of HIV among IDUs in Asian and other countries, and to support the implementation of policies which are likely to reduce the spread of HIV.

Opium has been produced and consumed since the nineteenth century in the areas of Asia currently referred to as the Golden Crescent and the Golden Triangle. In the 1970s and 1980s, most countries from Afghanistan to Japan experienced a heroin epidemic of varying degrees of severity. Opium and heroin abuse appeared to be more severe in countries and areas where those drugs were produced, an exception being Hong Kong, which has had a large population of heroin abusers for more than two decades. Drug injecting was far more common in countries of the Golden Triangle than in those of the Golden Crescent. In Myanmar and Thailand, for example, up to 90 per cent of chronic heroin abusers practised intravenous injection, which appeared to spread to heroin abusers in nearby territories such as the State of Manipur in India. Yunnan province in China, as well as Malaysia and Viet Nam. Amphetamine abuse was more frequent in Japan and the Republic of Korea for a number of years, while illicit production and consumption in the Philippines have recently shown significant increases. The injection of amphetamines was common only in the Republic of Korea. The prevalence of injecting among institutionalized methamphetamine abusers was reported at about 90 per cent. Most countries in Asia first reported cases of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the mid-1980s. An extremely rapid spead of the epidemic and high prevalence, at rates of from 30 to 90 per cent, of HIV infection among the sample of intravenous heroin abusers were observed in a few countries with a high prevalence of intravenous injecting, such as India (in the State of Manipur), Myanmar and Thailand. The rest had either few reported cases or none at all, even though needle-sharing was found to be common. Great caution should be exercised in interpreting prevalence because of vast differences in methods of assessment. Given the vulnerability of intravenous drug abusers to rapid transmission of HIV infection, the prevention of drug injecting is of paramount importance in arresting the spread of the epidemic. Efforts to contain drug abuse, though difficult, are a principal means of achieving that end.