BEIJING, Feb 20 (AFP) - China on Friday honoured for the first time its leading AIDS campaigner, a 77-year-old doctor who has frequently been harassed by officials trying to hide the problem of "AIDS villages" in central China.
Gao Yaojie, a retired doctor in the central Henan province, was among 10 people awarded the "Touching China" award, presented by the China Central Television (CCTV) station, the country's largest state-run network.
Gao has received prestigious international awards, including the Jonathan Mann award in 2001, but never in her own country, where she had up until recently been hounded by Henan regional officials.
The award is one of the highest profile honors and its presentation to Gao signifies a shift in the government's attitude towards the problem of farmers who have contracted HIV after selling blood in government-approved schemes.
The problem, which is especially acute in central China and notably Henan province, goes back to the 1980s.
In another unusual move, CCTV broadcast images of AIDS-stricken farmers lying in simple, makeshift clinics in villages. Such images are rarely shown on Chinese television.
Up to one million farmers are believed to have been infected with HIV in Henan alone after receiving tainted blood.
Infection came from the farmers having their blood pooled and then pumped back into them after the plasma was extracted to be sold.
The method was banned in the mid-1990s, but the central government did not respond initially even though farmers began dying mysteriously in the late 1990s and media first began reporting the problem in late 2000.
Local governments tried to cover up the problem by chasing away reporters and volunteers, of whom Gao was one of the first.
Despite being hounded, including having her phone tapped and being warned not to speak to reporters, Gao continued to visit villages to help patients and openly voice her criticism of official inaction.
Since 1996, Gao has spent 80,000 yuan (9,638 US dollars) of her own money to help 164 children orphaned by AIDS, and visited more than 100 villages.
She has seen more than 1,000 AIDS patients alone.
Gao told AFP Friday despite the central government seeming to pay more attention to the problem recently, much more work needed to be done.
"AIDS is not just a Henan problem. So many years this has been going on. It's so serious," Gao said. "But in many places AIDS outbreaks still haven't been reported. These places are still sealed up."
Other recipients of the award included China's first astronaut Yang Liwei; Hong Kong celebrity Jackie Chan; and Wei Shanhong, a Japanese lawyer who has worked for Chinese victims of Japan's World War II atrocities since 1963.
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