Taipei Times, 8 July 2014

The Taipei City Government's Department of Health yesterday introduced its "two don'ts and three dos" principle for young students to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS during the summer vacation.

The "two don'ts" are "don't party" and "don't do drugs," the department said, because parties are locales of prevalent unsafe sex and drug abuse that often put their participants at a greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS.

"The 'three dos' are do be careful whom you befriend online, do use condoms and water-based lubricants during sexual intercourse and do protect yourself by taking prophylaxis treatment within 72 hours after having unprotected sex," the department said.

The department said it decided to issue the warning after discovering that of the 162 new AIDS cases reported between January and May, 37 — or 22.8 percent — of them were young adults aged 19 to 24.

"More alarming is that all of these young people became infected with the disease through unsafe sexual conduct. About 76 percent of them acknowledged that they have looked for sexual partners online, such as via smartphone apps," the department said.

HIV/AIDS was ranked the 10th and 11th leading cause of death among the nation's young adults in 2012 and last year respectively, statistics compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare showed.

As of May this year, 27,405 HIV cases had been reported in Taiwan since 1984, of whom 5,563 were adolescents between the ages of 15 and 24.

By Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Source: Taipei Times