In all of Asia (including Southeast Asian countries), an estimated 5.0 million people were living with HIV in 2007, including the 380,000 people who were newly infected that year. Approximately 380,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses. National HIV infection levels are generally lower in East Asia than in Southeast Asia, where there are disparate epidemic trends.

In China, new HIV infections are increasing, albeit slowly. Although HIV infections have been reported in each of China's provinces, but most of the people living with HIV in China are believed to be in Henan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Xinjiang and Yunnan provinces. In Yunnan province, HIV surveillance at antenatal service sites found that 0.3% of pregnant women were infected with HIV. Slightly fewer than half the people living with HIV in China in 2006 are believed to have been infected through use of contaminated injecting equipment. In other countries in East Asia, both the absolute numbers of HIV cases and the rate of new infections remain low.