As we celebrate another World AIDS Day, you might be asking yourself: what has HIV and AIDS got to do with me? The causal gay man may or may not be aware of the fact that there is increasing interest in public health research in China regarding HIV infection and men who have sex with men, or MSM for short. Unlike in most Western countries, where HIV first struck gay men, China’s first major group to deal with this disease was among injection drug users. However, sexual contact has now overtaken injection drug users as the most frequent form of HIV transmissions. Based on 2007 figures, 12.2% of all HIV infections in China is due to homosexual sex, and this figure is expected to rise.1
China’s gay communities may not experience the epidemic proportions that the West has had to deal with regarding HIV, but gay men still need to be careful when engaging in sex. Based on scientific studies that
