Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 28 Nov 1995
Jeffrey Parker, Reuter

"China is entering a period of rapid escalation of AIDS cases," state-run China Central Television said in a frank weekend documentary, the first of a series on AIDS begun in the run-up to World Aids Day on Dec. 1.

"We must neither be afraid nor turn away."

The prime-time program broke several state-television taboos by airing unprecedented interviews, including one with a street-walking prostitute and several with Chinese infected with the HIV virus or full-blown AIDS.

It also showed rare footage of Chinese addicts injecting heroin and of unsanitary conditions at private blood-buying centers, where few precautions are taken against AIDS.

Titled "AIDS -- How far is it from us?," the program supplied a blunt answer: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is not a "foreigners' disease" as widely assumed but is here now and spreading rapidly among ordinary Chinese.

It repeated Beijing's official AIDS tally, saying 2,428 people had been diagnosed with HIV by the end of June, of which 77 had developed AIDS, but also revealed experts' estimates that there are now 50,000-100,000 HIV carriers in China.

That number had long been widely estimated by doctors but kept out of state media until only a few months ago, when, according to Chinese and western experts, AIDS' unrelenting spread forced Beijing to encourage more forthright public reporting.

A major AIDS seminar will open in Beijing on World AIDS Day and state newspapers have carried daily stories about how the disease is spreading in China.

Under guidance of the State Council, China's cabinet, the public health ministry has issued two policy documents calling for broad public education about AIDS -- even among university, high school and primary school students.

The documents stop short of encouraging the sexually active public to use condoms to avoid AIDS, a common strategy in many countries, but do endorse such teaching for high-risk groups such as drug users, prostitutes and their clients.

"The government has realised that AIDS is much closer to China than it had acknowledged before," China AIDS Network activist Sun Gang said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

"This signal from the State Council is very clear. Things are moving in a good direction," he said. "Some people who had insisted AIDS was strictly a public security problem now are starting to realise it is a health problem."

Sun said some officials still maintain AIDS can be stopped through better enforcement of laws banning drugs and prostitution and warn that explicit education could undermine state efforts to instil socialist morality.

State statistics show drug abuse and prostitution are spreading rapidly, especially among poorly educated Chinese who have become wealthy under market reforms.

A World Health Organization AIDS specialist in Beijing, Emile Fox, agreed the public face of AIDS in China had changed dramatically.

"Over the last couple months I think there has been a new awareness," Fox said Tuesday.

"People always want to believe AIDS involves someone else, and this is the same the world over. China is no different," he said. "But now, in China, the action is coming."
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