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school or work, transport costs for medical care, loss of income, school withdrawal,psychological/emotional trauma, for the individual, his/her family, the work place, and,ultimately, for the nation’s economy. HIV/AIDS has a multi-dimensional impact on acountry affecting social, demographic, economic and structural factors, not least, thehealth sector, family welfare and households, the education sector, business enterprisesand workplaces, and manpower resources. This wide spectrum of impact has beendocumented for Africa i but less so for affected countries in Asia. The recent UnitedNations Millennium Development Goals report commended Malaysia on its recordtowards achieving all MDG targets by 2015 except in halting and reversing the spread ofHIV/AIDS (UNDP 2005). An escalation of the HIV epidemic would seriously underminethe pace of socio-economic progress and the Nation’s Vision towards developed status by2020.Profile of HIV in MalaysiaSince the disease emerged in the mid-Eighties, the profile of reported HIV infections hasremained consistent, i.e., predominantly substance abusers (IDUs), male, 20-39 years ofage, Malaysian Malay ethnicity and heterosexual (Figure 1). The relatively young agegroupaffected implicates losses in human capital investments and productive resources.Furthermore, despite the preventive measures thus far, the persistence of the substanceabuse and dependence problem in Malaysia provides a continuous human pool ofpotential HIV infections. To reduce this risk, the Ministry of Health (MOH) andMalaysian AIDS Council (MAC) initiated the Harm Reduction programme in December2005 which will be expanded under the 2006-2010 National Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS(MOH 2006b).Despite the preponderance of infected men, there is serious concern over the risingnumbers of women infected with HIV. Women with HIV bear the added risk of verticaltransmission to infants. In addition, although the present numbers and proportion aresmall, there also appears to be a rising trend in new HIV infections classified as MSMtransmission.14