"Close associates" makes it sound as if intimate sexual partners are actually junior business partners. Or mob friends. Xinhua English is always amusing.

But seriously, men who have sex with men are left out of this report.

[him] moderator

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Some 17,000 people die of HIV in Myanmar in 2009
English.news.cn   
2010-07-22 19:35:14

YANGON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- About 17,000 people out of 238,000 infected with HIV/AIDS in Myanmar died in 2009, the local Biweekly Eleven reported Thursday.

About 21,138 HIV/AIDS patients underwent anti-retroviral therapy (ART) treatment during the year, accounting for 30 percent of the total.

Myanmar exposed the first HIV/AIDS-infected person in 1988 and began introducing ART treatment for such patients in 2005.

The authorities have stressed the urgent need for HIV prevention through education on such groups whose undertakings are posing a high level of danger to the society, citing those earning their living through sex trade and their partners, drug users and their close associates.

HIV prevalence rate has reportedly attained the most critical point especially in the border areas where socio-economic status is complicated.

HIV/AIDS is among the three major communicable diseases of national concern designated by Myanmar. The other two diseases are tuberculosis and malaria.

Myanmar treats the three diseases as priority with the main objectives of reducing the morbidity and mortality in a bid to become no longer a public problem and meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2010-07/22/c_13410497.htm