Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday December 2, 2002
Jonathan Ansfield

China could have as many as 12 million people with HIV/AIDS by 2010 or as few as 2.2 million--if the government fully engaged the problem as soon as possible, they say in a new survey.

"Right now there still exists a chance to prevent and control the broad spread of AIDS in China," according to the study, released on Sunday to coincide with World AIDS Day.

"It also may be the last chance."

Researchers from the Health Ministry and disease control center, the non-governmental Beijing Institute of Information and Control and London-based consultancy the Future Group took part in the study.

The official Xinhua news agency and the online arm of the Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, carried hard-hitting English language reports on it Monday.

But Chinese state media remained mum, another reminder of official stigma hampering the government's nascent anti-AIDS efforts, which include sending one million students out into the countryside over the next year to spread the word on HIV/AIDS.

The official China Daily also reported Monday that the government was likely to lift a longstanding ban on advertising condoms.

China estimates that by the end of June, one million people were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a figure the United Nations says could soar to 10 million by the end of the decade.

Although as a percentage of China's billion-plus population the figures are relatively small compared to the 28 million already affected by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of around 700 million, the new study predicts it could be worse.

"The projection that by 2010, China will have 12 million HIV/AIDS sufferers was based on the assumption that right now the government has not taken any substantial measures to prevent an epidemic," team leader Yuan Jianhua, of the non-governmental Beijing Institute of Information and Control, told Reuters.

China lacked measures "especially among prostitutes and intravenous drug users, the two groups most at risk," he added.

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

Researchers spent 3 months in the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxia and Shanxi and focused on the effects of AIDS in China, where few with the disease can afford pricey drug cocktails and most risk losing jobs and benefits by admitting their condition.

China will have to raise 260,000 AIDS orphans by 2010 and its medical bill from the disease could skyrocket to 6 billion yuan ($725 million), compared to 215 million yuan in 2001, according to the survey.

It is just the latest ominous forecast of China's AIDS time bomb to appear, whether at domestic conferences or in overseas medical journals.

Its message was unlikely to sway some top leaders reluctant to face up to the problem, experts said.

But the study offers a "rather optimistic" scenario in which China could slow the spread of HIV by 2004 by an influx of investment, awareness campaigns and prevention programs for drug users, sex workers, gays and migrants.

"China has a golden window of opportunity to face off the problem," said Dr. Ray Yip of the United Nations Children's Fund, which managed the study.

He cited recent government statistics showing 70% to 80% of those with the disease had been infected through blood-selling schemes or drug use, suggesting the virus is still concentrated in pockets.

But Beijing needed to reverse local policies and attitudes toward those groups that drive them further underground, he said. "We only got a window of opportunity of 3 or 4 years."

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