China and its Growing HIV Problems
China has long a history of trying to keep any information from leaving its borders if its negative. And of all, HIV is a huge embarrassment to admit. Recently, China has been forthcoming regarding its HIV problems but the West feels its a lot worse than they want to admit.
The Government has said there are 650,000 HIV/AIDS cases, half of them among intravenous drug users, out of a nation of 1.3 billion people. (Although this overall estimate of HIV and AIDS cases was lowered in January 2006 – in a report put together by the Chinese Government, the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV(UNAIDS) – from 840,000 to 650,000. Epidemiology experts have said that 1.5 million infected with HIV is closer to the true figure.
According to China’s health ministry, there are now 264,302 registered cases of HIV/AIDS in September 2008, up from 183,733 in 2006, with 34,864 deaths. But the real figures are likely to be much higher as testing and surveillance techniques are limited, especially in the countryside, and entrenched discrimination may have discouraged many from reporting. HIV spread steadily from Yunnan into neighboring areas and along the major drug trafficking routes, then from injecting drug users (IDUs) to their sexual partners and children. In the mid-1990s, the occurrence of a second major outbreak in commercial plasma donors in the east-central provinces became apparent. Plasma donors were paid to donate blood, the plasma removed, then the red blood cells re-infused to prevent anaemia. Reuse of tubing and mixing during collection and reinfusion led to thousands of new infections. At the same time, HIV was also spreading through sexual transmission. By 1998, HIV had reached all 31 provinces and was in a phase of exponential growth, which, by 2005, had culminated in an estimated 650,000 infections.
A country that dictates over everyone life is now hiding the fact that it has a major epidemic on its hands and will continue to spread to nearby countries.
Tom Thayer
Tagged AIDS Response Effort Inc, anaemia, ARE, blood donors, china, china & hiv, china aids, contaminated blood, drug trafficking routes, drug users, epidemic, IDU, Joint United Nations Program on HIV(UNAIDS), needles, peoples republic of china, plasma donors, PRC, prostitution, reuse of tubing, sexual partners, sharing needles, United States, USA, WHO, World Health Organization, Yunnan
