Beijing - As China's economic powerhouse hums with strong
growth and preparations for the Olympics in August, the subject of
AIDS is no longer taboo, and there are signs the government is taking
more initiative than ever.
Under pressure from the United Nations, the government has become
more open about AIDS. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have
made efforts to reach out, making televised visits to people living
with HIV/AIDS in recent years.
In its latest report in November, the health ministry warned that
the spread of HIV/AIDS in China continues to be driven by high-risk
behaviour within particular sub-populations.'
The government announced in November its intention to lift the
entry ban on foreigners with HIV, although it has still not done so.
Nonetheless, UNAIDS has been allowed to train some 5,500 Olympics
volunteers at 12 Chinese universities.
It produced information packs on HIV for another 100,000 Olympics
volunteers, coaching some people living with HIV to act as trainers
and public speakers for the programme.
We hope that through this training, Olympics volunteers, as
ambassadors for Beijing citizens, will be better prepared to
inclusively welcome all groups of people to Beijing during the games,
especially those living with HIV,' said Subinay Nandy, United Nations
Development Programme's country director for China.
It is our hope that Olympics volunteers will share this knowledge
and look for opportunities to continue volunteering on important
development issues such as raising awareness of HIV,' Nandy said.
Most HIV infections in China are believed to be still undiagnosed
because of ignorance, fear, poverty and other factors.
Many young people do not have the right information on AIDS,
fueling false fears, stigma and discrimination,' Bernhard
Schwartlaender, UNAIDS coordinator in China, said recently.
This is bad in itself, but also hampers HIV prevention work,'
Schwartlaender said at the launch of the UNAIDS programme to train
Olympic volunteers last month.
He held hope, however, that the training programme would have a
domino effect in spreading good information.
Engaging some of China's most capable young people and making
them the messengers of positive and correct knowledge on HIV can help
dispel inaccurate myths and break down the stigma and discrimination
against people affected by HIV,' he said.
There's no doubt that infections are on the rise, with a near-even
divide between sexual transmission and spreading through intravenous
drug use.
But UN experts have said the increases do not necessarily reflect
a jump in new HIV/AIDS infections in China. The experts argue that
recent drives to test more members of vulnerable groups may be an
important factor behind the rise in reported cases.
For 2007, China's health ministry reported a rise of about 22 per
cent in confirmed HIV infections, raising its estimated number of
infections to 700,000 after an initial estimate of 650,000.
Sexual transmission is now the main mode for the spread of HIV,'
with an estimated 45 per cent of new infections through heterosexual
transmission, the ministry said in a statement.
An estimated 42 per cent of new infections were through
intravenous drug use and 12 per cent were through homosexual
transmission. About 71 per cent of those currently infected were men,
it said.
Currently, China's HIV epidemic remains one of low prevalence
overall, but with pockets of high infection among specific sub-
populations and in some localities,' the ministry said.
The epidemic continues to expand, but the rate is slowing.'
The government says a total of 22,205 people had died from AIDS in
China since it reported its first case in 1985.
Health officials said the virus was spreading from high-risk
groups to the general population because of unsafe sex and the
migration of people already infected.
During the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of poor rural residents
were infected with HIV through blood-selling schemes in Henan, Hubei,
Shaanxi and other central provinces.
Dr Gao Yaojie led the way in exposing a scandal of mass HIV
infections through government-run or illegal blood-selling schemes in
Henan, and how local officials covered up the problem, content to
leave infected people to their fate.
Gao has fought since the late 1990s to secure drugs and money for
HIV-infected people in her home province.
But in a sign of the continuing reticence of the government to
allow activists and non-governmental organizations to lead the fight,
last year Gao was initially kept under house arrest to prevent her
from travelling to the United States.
A last-minute switch allowed her to collect an award from a US-
based AIDS group.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story