Japan and other parts of Asia should make efforts to curb prejudices against people with HIV and AIDS and reflect their needs in government policy, the founder of an HIV/AIDS advocacy group said Wednesday.

Finding ways to remove the social stigma of HIV and AIDS will be an important topic at an international AIDS conference in Kobe in July, said Hiroshi Hasegawa, founder of the Japanese Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.

"Many people with HIV, including women in South Asia, gays in Northeast Asia and drug users in Southeast Asia, are in socially weak positions. So they cannot lobby" the government about their needs, Hasegawa told a news conference in Tokyo.