Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
BBC News - Tuesday, 3 December, 2002
Francis Markus, BBC correspondent in Shanghai
Ironically, it happened just as the country marked World Aids Day on Sunday.
Health workers say the project, in the southern city of Guangzhou, is perhaps the only community-based care home of its kind in a country where most of the efforts to help Aids sufferers are under government auspices.
The workers say the problems the home faces are indicative of the widespread fear and ignorance about the disease that still prevail.
Endemic prejudice
It is a tiny and at times beleaguered community. At the moment, its members number only six.
But every day, more people with Aids telephone from distant provinces hoping to join.
Sunday's World Aids Day should have been an opportunity to reflect on what they have achieved.
Instead, the residents of the shelter found themselves having to move for the second time since the home was set up in September.
Once again their landlord had found out what kind of a community it was and sent them packing, out into the December rain.
Thomas, the young Chinese man with Aids who runs the home, told the BBC that the evictions were a sign of how hard it was for people with the disease to find acceptance in Chinese society - even though local authorities and doctors in the outward-looking southern city of Guangzhou are supportive of the project.
Public misunderstanding
Sunday's events marking World Aids Day were another sign that China is adopting a more open approach to Aids.
It is, for instance, liberalising laws on condom advertising and slowly moving to make it easier for drug users to get sterile needles.
But some health workers say the Chinese public is still not getting enough specific information on the transmission of the disease, and the result, says Thomas, is widespread fear.
He and his fellow residents are among the lucky ones.
Unlike most Aids sufferers in China, they have been able to raise money to fund expensive imported drugs.
Moreover, they have managed to find a new place to live.
But China's efforts on Aids are an evolving process, and nobody knows how long it might be before Thomas and his friends might face yet another eviction.
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