BEIJING, Oct 14 (AFP) - China will conduct its first nationwide study to learn the extent of an AIDS epidemic from blood selling, demanding local governments find and test every person who sold blood plasma, officials said Thursday.
The Ministry of Health issued an order Wednesday requesting provinces and cities throughout China carry out a comprehensive search to "fully grasp" who sold plasma and to test them for the HIV virus.
"Not one person should be missed," said a notice posted on the ministry website, adding that the country's AIDS situation was "critical".
"Those who became infected with the virus by selling blood around 1995 have entered the peak of symptoms and death," it said.
"A growing number of AIDS cases involving blood sellers have been exposed in some regions which were not previously regarded as being seriously affected. At the same time, there are still some areas where HIV-positive blood sellers remain undiscovered."
Detecting and treating the infected, many of whom were poor farmers desperate for income, was an "urgent task," it said.
"Without immediate anti-retroviral therapy, they will die in a short period of time."
The ministry said local governments must present a report by April 15, 2005 containing a database of residents in their jurisdiction who have sold blood.
The plasma sellers would then be tested for HIV and treated, the ministry said, adding that their privacy would be protected.
China says it has an estimated 840,000 HIV/AIDS patients, of which some 20 percent are believed to have been infected through unsanitary blood buying schemes carried out in the early 1990s.
Many farmers, especially in China's agricultural heartland, were infected. Blood collectors pooled blood from donors, extracted the plasma, and pumped the remainder back into farmers' bodies -- which led to high infection rates.
International AIDS experts say the actual number of HIV/AIDS cases in China is probably much higher, with the United Nations predicting 10 million cases by 2010 if the epidemic goes unchecked.
Experts applauded the ministry's decision Wednesday but cautioned people's privacy must be protected to encourage them to be tested.
"By international standards, everybody has the right to accept or reject testing, but the reason they're doing this is they believe it's in the public's good," said an expert who requested anonymity.
Ninety percent of those infected with HIV in China do not know they have the disease and risk infecting others, according to leading health experts. Government officials have admitted this.
"Many of them just die," said the anonymous expert. "Most rural hospitals would've missed it. They would've treated them for pneumonia or fever."
The blood-selling schemes, carried out in many provinces, were often endorsed by local governments until it was banned in 1996.
The new campaign was seen as further sign that Chinese leaders in the past year have begun seriously addressing the problem after initially ignoring it.
"In this past year, some of the more senior government officials came to realize the way they've been doing this for a long time, by giving empty slogans, is not going to stop the epidemic," the expert said.
It was unclear how cooperative local officials would be. Some areas may fear a loss of investors and not take the campaign seriously. Others may cooperate as the central government was pledging help.
Henan, which conducted its own study earlier this year, reported the number of HIV/AIDS cases from plasma selling nearly doubling to 25,000 from the previously reported figure. Some AIDS workers question the accuracy of the figure.
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