Drug Taking, Blood Collection Spread AIDS in China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 03, 2002

Drug Taking, Blood Collection Spread AIDS in China

China's AIDS problem is all put under such a frame: statistics on epidemic situation are worked out by experience, and state policies are based on these publicly reported figures.

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China's AIDS problem is all put under such a frame: statistics on epidemic situation are worked out by experience, and state policies are based on these publicly reported figures.

The infection channel of AIDS in China displays a geographical nature. In the west regions the deadly disease is mainly spread through shared injectors among drug takers, while in the central regions through illegal blood collection, said Xia Guomei, a researcher with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and China advisor of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Xia's statement is apparently backed by facts. Statistics published a few days ago by the Chongqing municipal government said that by June 31, the 16 districts of the city altogether reported 129 HIV cases, including 10 AIDS patients and 9 of them had died.

This group of statistics was then reported by local media under the title of "AIDS peak pressing on Chongqing", stressing that the city ranked the 5th place in terms of HIV carriers in China's west regions and the 22nd across the whole nation.

Almost at the same time of previous year, Chongqing ranked the 5th of west and 23rd of the nation. Things have gone worse.

While the two provinces Yunnan and Sichun are no better. The department of public health of Guangdong said the number of HIV carriers in the province had jumped to national 4th, next only to Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guangxi. And Sichuan followed Guangdong closely.

From a view of drug trafficking, we can easily understand the situation of the top 5 AIDS-hit provinces. Drugs entered China through Yunnan must go through Sichuan and drugs are directly connected with shared injectors, causing infection of HIV. As a result, the municipality of Chongqing located in Sichuan Province began to see surging HIV cases since 1998, and the disease has spread from high-risk population, especially drug takers, to common people, local official said.

"I believed drug takers were all rich people", said Xia Guomei, "until I entered into the depth of southwest regions last year for a survey, and I was so surprised to find out they were all poor peasants. Those drug traffickers induced them with money, and finally dragged them into their criminal network".

In China, AIDS is more linked to poverty, Xia concluded. Such as poor peasants selling their blood, flesh or becoming cat's paw of drug dealers. "There are many Sichuan people who got AIDS because they went to Henan to sell their blood. I asked them why, they said in Sichuan you have to go through blood checks and in Henan you don't. While most of them suffer from hepatitis C, infected during normal blood transfusion in earlier times".

In western countries AIDS is mainly spread through drug injection and sex, and there is one more way in China, that is illegal blood collection, Wang Qiaoling, a doctoral student with the People's University pointed out in her paper on China's blood security system. Henan, Anhui, Beijing and Shanghai are the most plagued provinces and cities. Scholars further pointed out that, through sex, AIDS is shifting from drug takers to common people, and will finally develop into a social disaster if not be checked in time.

Public figures based on "experience"

"The statistics are 100 percent real", Chen Xi, an official of AIDS prevention of Hunan Province, explained the reported HIV cases to reporter.

According to Chen, the reported figures are from four channels, hospital, state supervision station, general survey and self-examination of HIV carriers. China altogether reported 30,000 cases last year, and 8,000 cases were added during the first half of this year.

But this can only prove the reported number of people do have HIV, as for the real total number of infected people nationwide, public health official showed the calculation method. We assume HIV carriers in a certain place are mainly drug takers, then the number of drug takers should be taken as base. However, no one can tell exactly there are how many such people, we can only take reported numbers. Then, experience tells when there is one reported case there will be five left out at the same time. Take the infection rate and multiply it with the leaving out rate-all these are based on long-term experience, there will be the estimated total number at last.

The total number of HIV carriers in China published last April by the Ministry of Public Health is "about 850,000 cases", the figure announced by UN is "about 1 million" and this was even deemed conservative by some people.

While Xia Guomei showed no interest at all in these figures. "They carry no special meaning for me", she said, "a lot of people even don't know it is HIV that kills, the hospital doesn't know either, as a result their cause of death was written as pneumonia".

In China, the figure of HIV carriers is very sensitive, Wang Qiaoling said. Local officials only provide open statistics and first-hand data can only be got through secret channels. In this regard, the mass public's right to learn the truth is deprived entirely.

In China, statistics carry special meaning for officials, for these are directly linked with their work performance. Whoever reports figures honestly may not be well accepted as eligible or competent.

We can also see the impact on government work by figures based on "experience" from a document of the AIDS prevention center of Chongqing, which declared that "lack of awareness has become the biggest barrier in our work. Worrying the impact on economic development and social stability, we didn't make active efforts to promote AIDS knowledge and report actual problems, and we even hide HIV cases or postpone report of the epidemic��"

The UN called AIDS in China a "great danger" in a report published at the end of last June, urging the Chinese government to do more in AIDS control, promote awareness and eliminate discrimination. These words, published on official Chinese websites, were turned into tough speech on the New York Times: the UN openly criticized and put the blame on the Chinese government for AIDS rapidly spread in China.

By PD Online Staff Li Heng

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