On Thursday, the Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention opened a clinic in its Tokyo office whose hours will allow patients to see a doctor without having to miss work. The Suidobashi Misakicho Clinic in Chiyoda Ward will be open Tuesdays and Thursdays 5-8 p.m., and Saturdays from 1-5 p.m. Staff are making plans for the clinic to be open every weeknight in the future.
The clinic accepts only those patients who have been treated at specialist hospitals for a certain period of time and who are in stable condition. It also accepts referrals for patients from their regular hospitals, which may in turn accept the patients if their conditions worsen.
Suidobashi Misakicho Clinic is serving as a model for the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, which wants to start more evening and weekend clinics across the country. A ministry survey conducted in 2005 found 73 percent of 5,000 HIV patients were in the workforce.
Megumi Shimada of the AIDS Clinical Center of the International Medical Center of Japan said patients definitely place a high priority on treatment when they are first diagnosed, but an increasing number of them do not want to take off work every time they have to see a doctor. One HIV-positive male in his 30s said he regularly visits the doctor to manage his disease, though he wants "a way to visit the hospital without it having a major impact on my work."
Just a few hospitals currently provide evening and weekend hours for HIV/AIDS patients. The government is working to include the ministry's plan to create more flexible-hours clinics throughout Japan in its national budget.

Surveillance figures announced Wednesday by the Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention reveal that Japan experienced a record number of new HIV cases in 2006: 914, an 8.8 percent increase from 2005. In addition, 390 patients received an AIDS diagnosis.
Sex between men was the most common route of transmission. Among the newly infected, men outnumbered women 15 to one.
Despite the spike in new infections, Japan's HIV/AIDS caseload remains low by global standards. According to foundation figures, 13,778 people are known to be HIV-positive among the nation's 127.7 million people.
However, the upward trend puts Japan at odds with most other developed nations, where new HIV infections are decreasing and most new cases are heterosexuals. According to a foundation spokesperson, "This is because Japan is still lagging well behind compared with Europe or the United States" in terms of HIV knowledge and sex education in schools. "There are also cultural factors preventing people from wearing condoms, asking their partners to wear one or having their partners get tested before intercourse."
One bright spot: The number of Japanese presenting for HIV testing in 2006 was up 16.2 percent from 2005, an indication of growing awareness of the virus.