New HIV infections in Malaysia dropped by 22 percent last year due in large part to a decline in intravenous drug use and needle sharing, according to local media and government data (news.yahoo.com/AFP, 10/23).
Quoting health-ministry data, local newspapers said that 5,400 new HIV cases were reported in Malaysia in 2006, compared to 6,900 the previous year.
"In the past, 80 percent of Malaysians testing HIV positive were drug users. But lately, fewer cases were being diagnosed in this group," said Abdul Rasid Kasri, deputy director of the ministry's disease-control unit.
However, unsafe sex has accounted for many new infections, and cases in women have risen from 6 percent to 20 percent in the last five years.
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