In the Philippines, politician Justo C. Justo organised an event in a Manila suburb in which a nude model held up a giant syringe and posed before an immense model phallus. Cambodia had the highest AIDS rate in Asia, with 3.3 percent of the population infected and its sex workers had the highest rate in the country with 33 percent infected. Issues of the Financial Times newspaper sold in Asia raised the alarm about the worsening threat of AIDS worldwide. In rich countries, prevention efforts have stalled. But it is Africa, where 15 million have already died and another 25 million are infected, where the crisis is at its most acute.
Discrimination still exists.
The territory's Health Department is sponsoring a concert given by local pop star Miriam Yeung Chin-wah. Singapore's Straits Times newspaper marked World Aids Day by showing a large photo on its front page of an emaciated homeless man with HIV huddled over a candle in the corner of a disused shopping center. The stigma is so strong that HIV is hidden. World AIDS Day emerged from the call by the World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programmes for AIDS Prevention in January 1988. Pages will open in a new browser window External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.