AIDS in Taiwan: who has it?

According to the official records of Taiwan's Center for Disease Control (CDC), there is one recorded HIV carrier per 5,773 adults, or people aged 15 or older in Taiwan. Compared to the rest of the world, this accounts for an extremely low 0.017 percent of the adult population. According to the same agency's estimates, the rate of recorded and unconfirmed HIV carriers in Taiwan is one per 1,200 to 2,000 adults in Taiwan. This much higher range would nonetheless also make for a remarkably low 0.051 percent to 0.075 percent of the adult population.

Looking at the statistics another way, there are 3,044 officially recorded cases of HIV and AIDS in Taiwan, though it is estimated that there are actually between 9,000 and 15,000 cases.

"We used to think [the real number of cases] was five to 10 times the number of reported cases, but now we think it's only three to five times," said Lin Sheue-rong (林雪蓉), director of the CDC's AIDS unit. "The estimates have been revised down in the last two years because of the relative increase of people with HIV compared to those who develop AIDS. This means detection is coming earlier and better reflects the real numbers."

When it comes to AIDS, then, Taiwan is clearly not in the same company with South Africa, which has an estimated 4.2 million infected, or 19 percent of the country's adults, or Thailand, where an estimated 750,000 people are infected, or 2.1 percent of adults, or the US, which has an estimated 850,000 infected, or 0.61 percent of adults. But it would also be wrong to believe, as many people do, that Taiwan is removed from this growing pandemic.

As the world marked the 20th anniversary of the identification of the AIDS virus last month, one US researcher who was looking at the global picture reportedly remarked, "This is not the beginning of the end, this is only the end of the beginning."

Taiwan is not an exception

In Taiwan, "most people think it's not a problem, and that's the big problem," said Troy Lee (李大鵬), secretary general of the Light of Friendship AIDS Control Association (宜光愛滋防治協會), a local non-profit group working for AIDS education. "It's not an epidemic [in Taiwan] yet, but it's threatening to become one."

Generally speaking, the CDC agrees. Though the agency currently sees AIDS levels as manageable, the disease is growing in Taiwan, this year at a rate of about 100 new cases every two months, compared to a rate of 100 new cases every three months last year.

"We think it will continue to grow for a few more years, and then plateau at a stable level," said Wu Hsiow-ing (吳秀英), managing director of the Taipei Municipal Venereal Disease Control Institute, which provides medical services to around 600 AIDS/HIV sufferers each month. "But we'll have to wait and see."

Stuck on the issues

While statistics are easy to talk about, issues are not. And at present, the AIDS issue is so suppressed that one needs to practically go underground to get a closer look at the disease's victims and the organizations that work with them. To get into the Garden of Mercy, an AIDS hospice, I had to first convince May Chyou (邱淑美), the executive director, that I was trustworthy. I had already failed to do this with the Catholic nuns of the Lourdes Home, a drop-in center where HIV carriers can find community, counseling and support. At the Lourdes Home, Sister Theresa (謝菊英), who is extremely wary of the media, steered me away from the home's patients, saying that once I had left, she would ask one PWA/H (person with HIV/AIDS) if he were willing to tell me his story. "Last time, a photographer said he would not show [the interviewed AIDS victims' faces, but he did. They were very, very upset."