Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - November 29, 2006
The 621 new HIV/AIDS cases reported through Nov. 20 of this year brought Shanghai's total to 2,216, of whom 97 have died, said an official at the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Like many Chinese bureaucrats, the official refused to give his name. He referred questions to a report issued Tuesday that showed Shanghai, a city of more than 20 million, recorded 370 new HIV/AIDS cases last year.
More than 80% of the new cases were among migrants from other parts of China, the report said. Most cases were contracted through intravenous drug use.
Unprotected sex was the main transmission route for long-term Shanghai residents.
City officials have said they are trying to encourage use of condoms among women working in Shanghai's thriving sex industry, visible as saunas and pink-windowed "beauty salons" serving as fronts for brothels on many Shanghai streets.
Shanghai's Public Health Bureau plans to expand the number of methadone maintenance centers from five to eight to help prevent transmission of HIV through dirty needles.
"AIDS is on the rise in Shanghai due to lack of knowledge about disease prevention and the rising migrant population," the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily quoted Cai Wei, director of Shanghai's Public Health Bureau, as saying.
Last week, China reported that the number of registered cases of HIV/AIDS jumped 30% to 183,733 in January-to-October, compared to the same period in 2005. The actual number of cases is believed to be several times higher.
After years of denying that AIDS was a problem, Chinese leaders have dramatically shifted to confronting the disease more openly, promising anonymous testing, free treatment for the poor and a ban on discrimination against people with the virus.
Experts have said sharp rises in the number of reported cases in China shows the country is doing a better job of testing and tracking the disease, but also that the epidemic is spreading in many parts of the country.
Despite increasing awareness about the disease, HIV patients are often ostracized in China, according to the results of a survey reported Wednesday by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Fewer than half of the 956 respondents in China's three largest cities, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, said they would be willing to care for an HIV sufferer; 5% said they would actively discriminate against someone with HIV/AIDS, and nearly 40% had "absolutely no regard" for HIV patients, the report said.
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