Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Thursday October 11, 2001
At least 10 of those infected have developed full-blown AIDS and six have died, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
The report added to mounting official disclosures about the scale of China's AIDS crisis after years of denials that the disease was a problem.
Health officials say independent estimates that 600,000 Chinese are infected with the AIDS virus are probably accurate. A senior health official in August blamed the spread of the virus on intravenous drug use and China's flourishing sex trade.
U.N. experts warn that 20 million Chinese could be infected by 2010 without prompt steps to improve public education and end such unsafe practices. The newly reported cases in the northern city of Yuncheng account for half the confirmed AIDS infections in Shanxi province, the Guangzhou Daily said.
Most of the villagers contracted AIDS while selling blood; others were infected by reused needles, the newspaper said. It said all of them were infected before China tightened rules on blood sales in 1998.
China has a shortage of voluntary blood donors and has long relied on paid donors. In the 1990s, unregulated blood buyers - called "bloodheads" by Chinese media - made the rounds of villages.
If they were buying plasma, they took blood from people, put it in vats, extracted the plasma and re-injected the remainder into the donors. That meant one person with HIV could infect many others. Thousands of people in rural China are believed to have been infected.
The government has cracked down on the blood industry in recent years, especially unregulated blood buyers. It is encouraging voluntary donations and investing in a screening program to try to make blood supplies and products safer.
Officials in Yuncheng have taken unspecified measures to guard against social discrimination, the report said.
The central government has announced steps meant to slow the spread of the virus, but local authorities have generally treated the problem as an embarrassment to be covered up.
Authorities criticize foreign and Chinese journalists who report on "AIDS villages" where large numbers are infected through blood sales. Local officials have punished or tried to silence crusading doctors and other advocates for people with AIDS.
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