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Public Knows Little about AIDS: Survey
The general public knows very little about AIDS and has one-sided knowledge of how to prevent the fatal disease, according to a survey.
The survey covers residents in seven counties of Beijing, Shanghai and a number of provinces and autonomous regions such as Heilongjiang, Henan,Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. It was conducted by the State Family Planning Commission, with the auspices of the U.N. Children's Fund.
The survey found that, nearly 20 percent of the respondents have never heard of AIDS. Among those claiming that they know about the deadly disease, only 22.7 percent know that it is spread via virus.
The survey shows that nearly 72 percent of respondents note that AIDS is infectious, but most of them are not very clear about the channels through which it spreads.
Twenty-six percent are absolutely ignorant of the channels through which AIDS spreads. Fifty percent know that the disease can be spread through sexual intercourse.
Roughly 35 percent said that they knew the disease can be spread through blood transfusion. Thirteen percent said that AIDS can be spread by a mother to her infant. Nearly 17 percent thought that drug users may have AIDS by sharing injectors.
The survey also indicates that people have one-sided knowledge of prevention of AIDS. Some 62 percent of the respondents believed that the disease can be prevented. But as to how to prevent it, few people could give an entirely correct answer.
When asked about measures to prevent AIDS, about 42 percent of the respondents chose "rejecting prostitutes and drugs", 16 percent, 14.2 percent and 11.8 percent chose "avoiding reckless transfusion of blood and blood products", "proper use of condoms", "using disposable or sterilized needles and injectors", respectively.
Even in Shangcai County of central China's Henan Province, where AIDS cases are rampant due to improper blood transfusions, only 17.4 percent of the respondents know that avoiding reckless transfusions of blood and blood products is a measure to prevent AIDS.
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