AIDS cases rising in China

11 September, 2007

In China, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) shows no signs of abating.

According to the AIDS Control Work Committee of China’s State Council, a total of 18,543 new cases of HIV carriers and 4,314 cases of full-blown AIDS were recorded in China in the first half of 2007.

Han Mengjie, an official of the AIDS Control Work Committee said in Zhengzhou, the capital city of central China’s Henan province, that 2,039 people died from AIDS in the first half of 2007. Besides, by the end of July 2007, the accumulated number of AIDS/HIV patients in China totaled 214,300 – of which those with full-blown symptoms of the disease numbered 56,758. These figures show an increase of 5% from those in April 2007.

Mengjie cited drug abuse as the major cause for the newly reported human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections across China. He warned that the virus is observed to be spreading from high-risk groups to the general public mainly because of unsafe sex as well as the migration of persons already infected with the virus.

China, which once stigmatized AIDS as a disease of the West, is now increasingly being open about it. The United Nations estimates that the actual number of the killer disease in the country to be around 650,000.

China has become increasingly open about AIDS in recent years, facing up to an epidemic once stigmatized as a disease of the West.

Beijing is now supporting various campaigns to educate Chinese citizens on preventing HIV infections. Also, those people who got infected through reckless commercial blood collection in the central province of Hunan have been given free medicines.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has asked China to speed up its efforts to combat the spread of AIDS by giving more freedom to civil organizations and enrolling the help of companies.

Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS, gave Beijing high marks for opening up official policy toward AIDS, which China once branded as a disease of the West. However, he added, that a gap between centrally made rules and local implementation has impeded effective prevention of the dreaded disease in the country.