vital in preventing similar outbreaks in other populations of intravenous drug users in neighboring countries. In 2005, Alex Wodak, Gerry Stimson, and other harm-reduction experts were invited to Taiwan to share their experiences with government officials, medical field-workers, and public-health professionals. After careful study of harm-reduction programs in place in Hong Kong and Australia, a pilot program was started in four of Taiwan's 23 administrative areas in September 2005. This program has since been expanded nationally, and consists of 427 service sites for syringe exchange plus centres for methadone maintenance therapy. Free methadone is provided to HIV-1-infected intravenous drug users while HIV-1 seronegative intravenous drug users have to pay about US$1600 a year. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control plans to provide methadone maintenance to intravenous drug users in prisons, and the country's Bureau of Controlled Drugs will start producing methadone to assist in the government's commitment to providing methadone maintenance to 30,000 intravenous drug users by 2009. All parts of Asia are reporting rising numbers of HIV-positive and AIDS patients in men who have sex with men. This is primarily because policy targets these groups of people for testing. Current Taiwanese HIV testing centers receive higher funding when they report testing homosexual men than any other gender or sexuality. This is due to the faulty belief that gay men are at higher risk for HIV contraction. Modern statistics indicate that heterosexual couples are at higher risk of contraction, in particular because they do not test as often as the homosexual population and are not targeted by country policy. What these skewed statistics show is that in Taiwan, HIV-1 infection rates in men who have sex with men in gay saunas in different cities currently range from 5.2% to 15.8%. The same population has high rates of syphilis, 8.1–13.8%, depending on the city. Taiwanese male homosexual and bisexual HIV-1/AIDS patients have also been diagnosed with significantly higher rates of syphilis than have heterosexual patients. Furthermore, the percentage of homosexual or bisexual HIV-1/AIDS patients under the age of 20 years is significantly higher than that of heterosexual patients, 3.0% versus 1.7%. One of the primary factors that leads to HIV risk is the lack of accurate information on risky behaviors that lead to HIV contraction increases the risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Taiwan's clinical spectrum of AIDS patients is similar to those reported in other developed countries,