In April 2016, sexual contact was the primary mode of HIV/AIDS transmission. In
homosexuals, it accounted for 57.3% of all HIV cases and 38.7% of AIDS cases.
Heterosexual transmission is responsible for 27.2% of HIV infections and 35.7% of AIDS infections. The age distribution is mostly people in their twenties and thirties and are more likely to be in an urban setting than a rural one, and infected people are mostly male (15,567 males; 2,342 females diagnosed with HIV from 1985 to 2015). One study found a positive correlation between population density and the number of HIV/AIDS cases in the given area. They proposed that the increased number of people in an area of space increases the chance of possible encounters with an infected person as well as increased the general mobility of the disease. People were reluctant to get help during the offset of the disease due to the country's conservatism in dealing with issues surrounding sexual orientation. This delay and apprehension to get treatment lead to a greater population being diagnosed with AIDS. In 2015, 30% of the HIV/AIDS diagnoses were made once the virus had already progressed to AIDS. Owing to the lower number of cases relative to the rest of the world, the HIV/AIDS crisis seemed distant and unimportant. In a poll conducted in 1987, 68% of Americans deemed HIV/AIDS to be the most urgent health problem facing the country, 39% of the French thought the same, but only 13% of Japanese people thought this to be true. When the severity of the disease increased, much of it was attributed to foreigners due to lack of general information. == Funding ==