Dr. Rick, My friend is going on a sex tour to SE Asia, I told him he is fool and that AIDS and VD is worse there than here, especially among prostitutes and sex workers. Can you provide any statistics to enlighten him of the risks. Thanks for your help!

Hi. Thank you for your question. It is well known that prostitutes are at high risk for HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's). In Southeast Asia, the rate of AIDS is very high. Because of poor reporting, we do not have a good statistic of the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia. Based on our best estimates, there are an estimated 5.2 million people in South and Southeast Asia living with HIV/AIDS as of the end of 1996. It is estamated that 23% of the worlds cases of people living with HIV/AIDS as of the end of 1996, live in South and Southeast Asia. Based on the statistics that I do have, Thailand has the largest number of AIDS cases in all of Asia (44,471 cases as of 10 April 1996). Because of poor reporting in this part of the world, this is almost certainly an under-reported statistic. Also remember that these cases in Thailand are AIDS cases, not HIV cases that do not yet have AIDS.

My suggestion to your friend is the same as my suggestion to anyone thinking about going to any prostitute anywhere in the world. Assume the prostitute is infected with HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's), and to always use protection. It's very important to remember that these statistics CANNOT be used to determine a persons personal risk when having sex with a prostitute. This is because a persons personal risk of infection varies greatly from situation to situation. The risk depends upon many different factors. For example, the risk can depend upon the level of risk of the prostitute (some prostitutes are at higher risk of infection than others). The risk also depends upon the specific sexual activity that was engaged in (some sexual activities are higher risk than others), and whether protection was used (use of condoms significantly reduces the chances of infection). For more information on the topic of HIV and prostitutes, see the questions, "Are registered prostitutes HIV free?", and "Sex industry workers".

If you have any further questions, please feel free to call the Centers for Disease Control at 1.800.232.4636 (Nationwide).