Sri Lanka has a low incidence of AIDS despite nearly 25 years of an armed conflict, large number of internally displaced and a high degree of internal and external migration – all factors normally conducive to high escalation of AIDS victims.
  
AIDS affects less than 0.1 percent of the general population, and less than one percent of high-risk groups, such as men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers and returnee migrants. Official estimates show that some 5,000 Sri Lankans are living with HIV.  Dr Nimal Edirisinghe, who heads the government's sexually transmitted disease (STD) and AIDS control programme said the latest statistics showed that up to May 2007, a cumulative total of 872 patients had been diagnosed as HIV positive, of whom 220 had developed AIDS and 162 had died.  "My personal view is that we will not have a general epidemic in this country. It is true that there are conflict-related factors, but we don't have large numbers of injecting drug users. That is the deciding factor," he added.