China

HIV/AIDS is an emerging epidemic in China. Although reported statistics show incidence as relatively low (when compared to the worst affected countries), actual numbers are far higher and are increasing rapidly. Unless urgent action is taken, China will face continued rapid increases in numbers infected. The Ministry of Health estimates that 10 million people may be infected with HIV by 2010 unless effective countermeasures are taken speedily. Because of the absolute numbers and the relatively high costs of care involved, even modest rates of infection amongst the general population will have huge effects on social and economic development.

AIDS Erupts as National Security Issue - Epidemics Threaten Russia, China and India

Five years ago, the Clinton Administration identified AIDS as a national and global security threat, declaring that it has the potential to destabilize governments. Today, the threat has grown as governments across sub-Saharan Africa teeter on the brink of collapse while those in developed and developing states differ greatly in their reactions to the devastating disease from denial to the suggestion of aggressive action.

AIDS in China: From Drugs to Blood to Sex

Timely intervention may still be able to slow the spread of HIV from current high-risk groups -- such as intravenous drug users and paid blood donors -- to the general population, where it will spread rapidly via sexual relations, according to Chinese experts. China's flourishing sex trade and ever-increasing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, especially syphillis, are creating conditions that allow HIV to spread more easily. In Yunnan Province, where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is oldest and most serious, the Provincial government's epidemiological station estimates that 28% of intravenous drug users, two percent of Yunnan Province prostitutes, and one percent of those who patronize prostitutes were infected with HIV as of the end of 1999. Meanwhile, large reservoirs of HIV in intravenous drug users and paid blood donors (reportedly 10,000 in one Henan county alone) increase the likelihood that HIV will spread rapidly from these groups to the general population through heterosexual transmission.

Anti-AIDS Effort in Central China Focuses on Former Plasma Donors

The epidemic in Central China took root between the late 1980s and the late-1990s when entrepreneurs paid poor farmers in Henan province for plasma — the liquid portion of blood that provides critical proteins for blood clotting and immunity. The farmers, who were not tested for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or other blood-borne infections, gave blood to collection centers, which pooled the blood of several donors of the same blood type, separated the plasma, and injected the remaining red-blood cells back into individual donors to prevent anemia.

Beijing warns of harsh punishments for hospitals rejecting AIDS patients

China issued earlier last month its first official guidelines on how to prevent and control the spread of HIV, promising to protect HIV carriers and AIDS patients from discrimination and to ensure their marriage, employment, medical care and education rights.

Breaking Through the Clouds-PAR project with migrant children and youth along the borders of China, Myanmar and Thailand

The vulnerabilities of migrant children and youth are not only the result of limited understanding and documentation, but also due to the lack of insight into how best to address their realities…This is particularly the case for young girls trafficked into the sex-industry, or as domestic workers, those abusing drugs, child beggars and young migrants separated from their family members in immigration detention centers.

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Can China Avoid Making everyone else's Mistakes

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China HIV/AIDS Blood Supply Chronology

Chronological history of the Blood Supply Chronology history of China

China HIV/AIDS Chronology

Chronological history of the HIV/AIDS history of China

China's Blood Donor AIDS Victims Turn to Suicide

Popping two pills a day to stave off AIDS symptoms helps Chinese wheat farmer Tan Zhiyun delay the inevitable -- suicide.

China Discrimination Fuels HIV/AIDS Crisis-Investigation Urged into Blood Infection Scandal

National laws discriminate against people with HIV/AIDS, and some local laws ban them from using swimming pools or working in food service. The police send drug users to detoxification centers, where they are forced to labor without pay to make trinkets for tourists. Instead of receiving help for their problem, they are driven underground, making it harder for the government to combat the AIDS virus.

China’s Growing AIDS Epidemic Increasingly Affects Women

Increases in the heterosexual transmission of HIV in China are fueling concerns—including among senior Chinese leaders—that the epidemic may be moving from specific regions and at-risk groups into the general population, where the virus could more easily prey on women's vulnerabilities.

China’s Population: New Trends and Challenges

China has been the world’s most populous country for centuries and today makes up one-fifth of the world’s population.

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Chinese college students have poor knowledge of AIDS: survey

Just over 67 percent of Chinese college students have accurate knowledge of HIV/AIDS, according to survey results released by the Ministry of Health.

Current HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among the general population in China: Implications for action

China is the world’s most populous country, and yet relatively little is known about the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic confronting that nation. The number of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS in China is not known with any assurance, and few data are available about the level of HIV-related knowledge among the population.

Current Overview of HIV/AIDS in China

The Chinese government currently estimates up to one million Chinese citizens may be infected with the AIDS virus. However, experts agree that these figures do not accurately reflect the actual number because China lacks the resources to carry out extensive surveillance in the countryside. Additionally, current surveillance protocols primarily cover only specific high risk groups. Because of these limitations, it is estimated that only five percent of HIV cases in China are reported. UN and World Heath experts believe the real figure lies between 1.5 and two million, and the United Nations Program on AIDS (UNAIDS) projects China could have between 10 and 15 million HIV cases by the year 2010. Although this number represents only a small percentage of China’s vast 1.2 billion population, the sheer numbers of people at risk is staggering.

Discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS and associated factors: a population based study in the Chinese general population

Around 42% of the respondents exhibited discriminatory attitudes in at least five out of the 20 relevant items. For instance, about 42% would avoid making physical contact with PLWHA; 35% believed that all infected medical staff should be dismissed and about 47% would agree with enacting a law to prohibit PLWHA from visiting Hong Kong. A sizeable proportion of the respondents also hold negative perceptions about PLWHA (for example, 43.7% agreed that the majority of PLWHA are promiscuous, 20.7% thought that PLWHA are merely receiving the punishment they deserve, etc). Multiple regression analysis found that age, HIV related knowledge, the above mentioned negative perceptions about PLWHA, fear related to AIDS, and exposure to HIV related information were independent predictors of discriminatory attitudes towards PLWHA. About 30% would give PLWHA the lowest priority in resource allocation among five groups of patients with chronic diseases.

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Equity of the Ineffable: Cultural and Political Constraints on Ethnomedicine as a Health Problem in Contemporary Tibet

Using the case of ethnomedicine in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China, this essay illustrates the centrality of culture to health. It also argues for greater sensitivity to the ways that cultural politics affect health equity. In contemporary Lhasa, cultural freedoms are limited by the politicization of Buddhist religion and secular modernization. These policies are linked to historical public health efforts aimed at establishing equity by providing basic health care to all China’s citizens. But such policies have not eliminated all diseases, and in fact are thought today to directly produce women’s reproductive health problems. Moreover, the secularist nature of modernization is seen as producing health problems related to emotional distress, particularly problems diagnosed as "winds" and associated with unfulfilled desires tied to secularization

Experience of stigma among Chinese mental health patients in Hong Kong

The stigma attached to a label of ‘mental illness’can have a lasting impact on the person so labelled. The expectationand actual experience of stigmatisation can result in loweringof self-esteem and quality of life persistent depression impairmentin social relationships and early treatmentdiscontinuation Coping with the stigmaby avoidance, withdrawal and secrecy is common, but may resultin demoralisation, social isolation and lost opportunitiesfor education, employment and housing

High Prevalence of Antibodies to Hepatitis A and E Viruses and Viremia of Hepatitis B, C, and D Viruses among Apparently Healthy Populations in Mongolia

Reflecting an extremely high prevalence of hepatitis virus infections, there were no appreciable differences in the prevalence of hepatitis virus markers between the two studied populations with distinct living place and lifestyle. A nationwide epidemiological survey of hepatitis viruses should be conducted in an effort to prevent de novo infection with hepatitis viruses in Mongolia.

Data from 633 sexually experienced female migrants were analyzed to examine the sociodemographic and psychosocial factors and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related behaviors associated with involvement in commercial sex. Six percent (40/633) of the participants reported having had sex for money. Compared with women who had not engaged in commercialsex, women who had sold sex were younger, less educated, and more likely to be unmarried. They were more likely to have engaged in HIV-related risk behaviors, such as becoming intoxicated with alcohol and using drugs. Among women who engaged in commercialsex, only 28% of them consistently used condoms during the last three episodes of sexualintercourse. Women who had ever engaged in commercialsex demonstrated greater depressive symptoms than those without such a history (p<.01). Female migrants, especially those engaging in commercial sex, were vulnerable to HIV/sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Sexualrisk reduction and condom promotion are urgently needed among this population. Further studies are needed to examine the causal relationship between depression and HIV risk behaviors.

HIV/AIDS as a Regional Security Threat-China

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Xinjiang and throughout the greater Central Asian region is a pressing security concern to China and the entire Central Asian region. Xinjiang’s HIV/AIDS situation…bleakly reveals that China and the entire geopolitical region faces a security issue of the gravest proportions.

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HIV/AIDS: China’s Titanic Peril

Several areas will need priority attention if a catastrophic AIDS epidemic is to be averted in China at the start of the new millennium: guidance for HIV/AIDS programmes needs to be sought from international consensus on best practices, emphasis needs to be put on the great urgency for timely implementation of effective HIV/AIDS prevention, strategic planning of AIDS programmes needs to be based on detailed and dynamic situation and response analyses; the current chaotic situation in the STI care system needs to be addressed like a priority national disaster; investment of human and financial resources into AIDS prevention needs to be markedly increased.

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HIV/AIDS Epidemics Expand Rapidly in Asia

The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS epidemics in Asia, illustrated by dramatic increases in new infections in China, Thailand, and Vietnam over the past year, poses particularly worrisome challenges for the international health community.

HIV/AIDS in China: Transmission via Commercial Plasma Collection

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Human Rights Watch

China: Police Violence Against HIV-Positive Protestors Escalates Henan Authorities Deepen AIDS Cover-up

Lawsuits its generated, has already instilled physical and psychological fear of blood transfusions among the Chinese people

Without a doubt, getting AIDS was an enormous blow for Sun Aihong but what has been even more unbearable is the attitude of her friends and family. In the eyes of the local people, AIDS is not just an incurable infectious disease, but also a kind of “promiscuous” disease. Sun Aihong was forced to move to her parent’s home after she could no longer live with her in-laws. People who knew her well would avoid her. Her grandmother would even spit on the floor violently in front of her

Legalise prostitution in China

While needle sharing remains the main source of HIV transmission, sexual transmission stands at 10 per cent, and is steadily rising. The sex industry is seen as the primary source of this increase.

Limiting the Future Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in Yunnan, China

In Yunnan, HIV/AIDS prevalence has been rising exponentially since 1993-94, hand in hand with sexually transmitted diseases, which facilitate the spread of infection in the general population. While the impact on children is still limited (the mother to child transmission represents a very limited share of the total infections in the province), it is bound to rise rapidly over the next decade because of the absence of clear policy in this area. Even if the government started to recognize the potential impact of the disease, specific program activities are still lacking, social values and norms prevent the issues from being tackled openly, and a reluctant bureaucracy often conceals the problem. The weakness of the social infrastructures and of the health care system is also a factor that increases the potential impact of AIDS in the province. So far Yunnan has benefited little from the considerable experience gained in countries such as Thailand on prevention and mitigation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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Procedures of This Municipality on the Prevention and Treatment of AIDS-China

With a view to preventing and controlling the incidence and prevalence of AIDS and safeguarding human health, these Procedures are formulated in accordance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases and the State provisions concerning the prevention and treatment of AIDS, and in the light of the actual circumstances in this Municipality.

Stigma key barrier to AIDS prevention in China

Overcoming stigma and discrimination is crucial to China winning the war against AIDS, said Koen Vanormelingen, chief of the Health and Nutrition Section of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Office for China.

Surplus men in China may become significant new HIV risk group

"Alongside a rapid increase in sexually transmitted disease incidence across developed parts of urban China," the authors said, "surplus men could become a significant new HIV risk group.

The Coming AIDS Crisis in China

The Chinese minister of health, Zhang Wenkang, made an astonishing announcement: 600,000 people in China have AIDS or are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes it. The Chinese government had never before admitted to large numbers of H.I.V. cases. And what this estimate shows, given the conditions fostering the spread of H.I.V. in China, is that a major explosion of H.I.V. and AIDS will happen there

The Future of AIDS: Grim Toll in Russia, China, and India

HIV/AIDS is a disease at once amazingly virulent and shockingly new. Only a generation ago, it lay undetected. Yet in the past two decades, by the reckoning of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), about 65 million people have contracted the illness, and perhaps 25 million of them have already died. The affliction is almost invariably lethal: scientists do not consider a cure to be even on the horizon. For now, it looks as if AIDS could end up as the coming century's top infectious killer.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on Business in China

The well-documented increase in labor costs brought on by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and Southeast Asia indicate what companies operating in China may face in the future. Many people who contract HIV are unaware that they are ill and work for several years before their health begins to decline. The impact of HIV/AIDS first hits businesses when a worker's absenteeism increases and may be particularly severe for companies that employ skilled workers. A study in Beijing conducted between 1994 and 1999 found that HIV-infected people spent an average of 89.6 days per year in the hospital and made an additional 2.7 outpatient visits per year. Because of the highly personal nature of Chinese business relationships, moreover, the absence of key workers may amplify the impact of HIV/AIDS. Compounding matters, healthy employees often contribute to worker absenteeism rates when they take time off to care for HIV-infected family members. When workers are absent, remaining employees take on extra work, which results in higher overtime costs and workplace stress. Workers and their families may also demand death benefits, funeral expenses, and bereavement leave, further raising the costs of business for employers.

The Potential of Comprehensive Sex Education in China: Findings from Suburban Shanghai

Comprehensive, community-based interventions may be effective in reaching large numbers of Chinese youth and in promoting sexual negotiation, contraceptive use, and pregnancy and STI/HIV prevention. International Family Planning Perspectives, 2005, 31(2):63–72 A sexual revolution of sorts is under way in China, particularly among youth. Whereas a generation ago, prevailing attitudes toward sex were conservative by any standard and premarital sex was almost unheard of, today young people in China are increasingly open to more liberal ideas about dating and relationships

The Wedding of Qualitative Research and Public Health Policy

I want to begin with two marvelous jokes by Professor Pan Suiming. “The Prostitute says to her customer, ‘Move your head, I am watching TV.’ A family of three was talking about prostitution. The husband said, ‘One act with a prostitute in some city is worth three years salary.’ The wife immediately responded, ‘Then, never visit a prostitute.’ The daughter unexpectedly said, ‘I should do this work.’ (Pan Suiming in Gail Hershatter 1997:392). I open with this quote from Pan Suiming because it captures some of generational attitudes and economic incentives for sex work within contemporary China.

UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION OF JUNE 25 CHINA AIDS ACTION PLAN

There has been some progress in the nationwide work to prevent HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Yet today HIV/AIDS and STD prevention work in China is still very difficult. The AIDS epidemic is spreading rapidly and the number of people who have developed AIDS is increasing rapidly. The very rapid spread of HIV among intravenous drug users has still not been brought under control. The transmission of HIV through the collection or transfusion of blood has still not been stopped. Illegal manual blood plasma collection methods along with the illegal collection of blood plasma have still not stopped despite repeated prohibitions.

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