Probably the coming 21st century is said to be the century for infectious disease. Overcoming AIDS, or other infectious diseases may be the cornerstone to protecting the humans healths,all over the world. Especially AIDS continues to spread, and AIDS prevention and control are big international problems. AIDS was first discovered at the beginning of the 1980s. Since then, the WHO estimates that over 8 million people are infected with AIDS. AIDS infection does not recognize national borders, that is to say, it has possibility to occur in both advanced and developing countries. AIDS doesn't have relation to the level of social and economic development,because the major mode of transmission is through sexual contact.(But in a few countries,transmission is through the use of non sterilized needles among drug users.) Without prevention measures, there will be large increases of people, mainly adults, infected with AIDS in the world. However the highest rates of AIDS prevalence among adults do not exceed 2%, in the Western Pacific and Asia, while in some parts of the world prevalence rates exceed 20%. Why? Because the low level of AIDS transmission in the Western Pacific area related to high level of education and health. Good education and health services are helping us to stop the spread of AIDS infection. For example, in Japan, the majority of sex workers have noticed the importance of condoms in the prevention of AIDS infection.

Now, we don't have vigorous treatment for AIDS, but it is a preventable disease if we employ a correct education and health services. I said that AIDS infection didn't recognize national borders, however, its prevention is different between countries. For example in Japan, the JMA (Japan Medical Association) provides accurate information to public by educational posters on AIDS prevention, and it's effective in helping to stop the spread of AIDS. So what the Japanese medical community can do for world health is providing a correct education of prevention of AIDS to all over the world. And actually it is proceeding. JMA makes efforts to support spreading basic education and prevention of AIDS in developing countries. For example, the JMA has been in health care cooperation activities in nepal since 1992. In Nepal basic health education against disease prevention has been introduced in the communities including the proper use of condoms as an effective preventive measure against AIDS. These efforts have been highly evaluated by the Nepalese government. I hope these efforts, JMA's activities in overseas cooperation in health care, help improve world health.