To some extent, Taiwan and the Philippines could be considered as low HIV impact countries in Asia in terms of their current reported number of HIV cases. At the beginning of 2009, the cumulative numbers of HIV cases in Taiwan and the Philippines were 16,977 and 3,654, respectively. However, like Taiwan, the Philippines must be very much aware of the potential for an outbreak of infection among injecting drug users (IDUs). Between 2000 and 2005, neighbouring Asian nations that previously had low HIV prevalence, such as Vietnam, experienced explosive spreads of the disease due primarily to injecting drug use, according to UNAIDS (2008) .