Totally Frightful Statistic: HIV in Korea

Woof, talk about a scary statistic! Grand National Party Representative Moon Hee told his legislative peers that out of the 4,227 (known) HIV positive Koreans, 3,842 are men. For those of you not mathematically inclined (don’t worry, we’re not, either), that means that 90% of HIV positive Koreans are men. (Note: Given that our source, The Korea Times, is based in Seoul, we’re assuming this is South Korea we’re talking here.)

Moon goes on to deride the government for its lax policy on testing men. She says:

“Despite an alarmingly large number of male HIV-infected patients, the government has been less keen on promoting specific measures to prevent men from contracting the disease…”

Many of those men work in the “massage/entertaiment industry” (hooking?), the same industry that requires HIV testing for women.

Oh, if you’re interested in the “gay/straight” breakdown, here it is: out of the 3,842 men infected with HIV, 1,377 contracted it via M4M, while 1,801 got it from lady-lovin’.

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