Public awareness of AIDS in Singapore

Singapore had 52 cases of AIDS as at June 1990. This places Singapore in the low-infection-load group of countries. Constant vigilance is necessary however. The Health education programme against AIDS in Singapore was launched in 1985. This first ever National Survey on public awareness of AIDS was carried out by the Research and Evaluation Department, Ministry of Health HQ, in late 1987, to assess the impact of the programme. It showed the level of knowledge of among Singaporeans to be high and comparable in many areas to that in the USA. The survey however also showed lack of credibility in the knowledge of AIDS among the public in certain important areas. This poses challenges to the public education programme.