According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, there were 621 new HIV cases reported and 332 cases of AIDS in 2001, both record highs. Excluding those infected through blood coagulants, the number of new HIV cases surged by 159, or 34 percent, from the previous year, to a cumulative of 4,526 cases. There are an estimated 950,000 HIV-infected people in North America and 550,000 in Western Europe. However, public health experts argue that the situation in Japan is deteriorating faster than anyone anticipated, and they predict there will be 16,000 HIV cases in Japan by 2003 and up to 50,000 cases by 2010.

Since 1992, Tokyo Gas Co. has been holding company-wide sessions where an advisor specializing in AIDS education delivers lectures to rank-and-file employees and mid-level managers. The lectures vary from basic knowledge of the disease to human rights in the workplace. "When conveying a message to the new graduates in particular, we emphasize that the number of young sufferers is rising rapidly," said Kazuko Matsuzaki, director of TG's health promotion center. The number of new male HIV cases reached 475 in 2001, up from 108 nearly a decade ago. Males under age 29 accounted for over 38 percent of the total, up from 31 percent on average from 1985 to 2000.

"I can say that Japan is now facing a second wave of AIDS, with a lot of people quite unaware that they can be exposed to the disease through sexual intercourse," said Seiichi Ichikawa, professor of public health at Kanagawa Prefectural College of Nursing and Medical Technology.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. offers a free checkup at its health care centers in Osaka and Tokyo not only to its 50,000 employees but also to their families. They can remain anonymous so that there will be no report sent to their superiors at work, and the centers even offer phone and face-to-face counseling services. Hiroshi Hasegawa, representative of Japanese Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, admits some leading companies are becoming good at maintaining HIV patients' privacy, but he fears many companies still make a grudging response to circumstances, thinking they dare not look into such controversial issues.

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