China vs. AIDS

By staff reporter LU RUCAI

AIDS orphans need help from society.

China's first HIV positive diagnosis was in 1985, the victim an Argentine-American. At that time most Chinese, medical workers included, thought of AIDS as a phenomenon occurring outside of China. Twenty years later, the number of HIV/AIDS patients has risen alarmingly. In 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Health launched an AIDS Epidemiological Investigation across China with the support of the WHO and UN AIDS Program. Its results show that there are currently 840,000 HIV carriers, including 80,000 people with full-blown AIDS, in 31 Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. This means China has the second highest in Asia and 14th in the world. Statistics from the Chinese Venereal Disease and AIDS Prevention Association indicate that the majority of Chinese HIV carriers are young to middle aged, more than half of them between the ages of 20 and 29.

Statistics also show that 68 percent of AIDS cases in China are because of intravenous drug use. Blood collection and transfusion of plasma account for a further 9.7 percent; 1.5 percent of cases occur through use of blood products; 7.2 percent have been infected through sexual intercourse and in 0.2 percent of cases the virus has passed from mother to infant. The latter two causes of HIV/AIDS infection have seen an increase in recent years. The cause of the remaining 13.4 percent of cases is unknown. Experts predict that unless drastic measures are taken, the number of HIV/AIDS cases will surpass 10 million by 2010.

Knowledge of AIDS to Be Popularized

Chinese people have long assumed AIDS to be a purely sexually transmitted disease. On November 17, 2003, China Central Television website issued an AIDS awareness questionnaire, and within three months 23,750 netizens had responded. Results showed that 23.71 percent believed sexual intercourse to be the main cause of the spread of AIDS, while 23.10 percent saw blood transfusions as the culprit; 20.49 percent ticked drug abuse; 17.64 percent thought it was mainly passed on from mother to child; and 8 percent thought AIDS could be contracted from insect bites. Only 58.15 percent knew that December 1st is World AIDS Day. 

Low AIDS awareness means that the majority of Chinese people do not know how AIDS spreads. Many rural dwellers refuse to buy grains and vegetables grown in villages that have cases of HIV/AIDS, and it has been reported that inhabitants of villages neighboring those with AIDS cases close and curtain all windows facing them in the belief they can thus avoid being infected. Even tricycle drivers refuse to go to villages where there is HIV/AIDS. Young residents of these villages are consequently hard put to find marriage partners.

There have been "Let's Keep Away from AIDS" themed activities at primary and middle schools.

A social survey in Neijiang City in China's southwestern Sichuan Province shows that of the 1,184 people investigated, 88 percent believe that people with HIV/AIDS should be isolated. Out of the 33.3 percent of HIV carriers that publicly declared their condition, 92 percent were subsequently socially ostracized. As frankness brought these brave few prejudice rather than sympathy and support, the majority of HIV carriers do not dare to tell anyone they are HIV positive. This further increases the risk of spreading AIDS.

China: Declaring War on AIDS

On November 26, 2003, China Central Television broadcast an advertisement for condoms as protection against AIDS. This was the first sexually oriented, in the sense of AIDS prevention, Chinese commercial ever shown on CCTV. Although it ran for less than two weeks, it nevertheless signaled China's serious intent to fight AIDS.

The looming threat of AIDS has prompted the Chinese central government to increase its investment in AIDS prevention and treatment. When the China AIDS Prevention Fund was first established in 1996, it was allocated funds of just 5 million yuan each year. Since 2001 this has increased to 100 million yuan.

In March 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Health signed Comprehensive AIDS Prevention and Control Experimental Region Target Management Responsibility agreements with 11 provincial level health organizations. Soon after, 51 AIDS prevention and control experimental regions started giving free medical treatment to people infected with HIV/AIDS. There are currently only 3,000 or so Chinese PWHA receiving free drug cocktail treatment, but the government plans to set up a total 124 such experimental regions in three years.

On December 1, 2003 Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao went to Ditan Hospital in Beijing to meet three AIDS patients. He shook them by hands and talked with them. This marked the first time a Chinese premier had visited AIDS patients. On February 18, 2004, 76 medical and financial workers from Henan Province, where it is believed HIV/AIDS is spreading most rapidly, went to villages with a high percentage of HIV/AIDS infected inhabitants. They will live next door or close to HIV/AIDS victims for a year and help establish HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. They will also provide free medical treatment, free anonymous HIV testing, free education for AIDS orphans, free intervention to prevent mother-infant transmission, and free care for elders.