Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - January 25, 2006
Shai Oster - Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
About 70,000 Chinese were infected last year with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That brings the total estimated population of people in China with HIV to 650,000, according to a report jointly released Wednesday by the Chinese Ministry of Health, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization.
The pace of growth of new infections is about 10% -- ranking China alongside India and Russia, two other nations where international health authorities are concerned AIDS could quickly grow.
Death rates are also rising, as 25,000 people died last year from complications related to AIDS. Officials didn't offer a comparison figure for deaths from previous years.
"Make no mistake, China's AIDS epidemic is growing," Henk Bekedam, the WHO's representative in China, said. He cautioned that much more work needs to be done in raising public awareness and getting more people to volunteer for AIDS testing. Only about a quarter of all victims know they are infected with AIDS, according to the report.
"Public awareness is still too low. Some might argue even dangerously low," Mr. Bekedam said. The report cautioned that some government officials aren't taking the threat of AIDS seriously, and the distribution of free care and drugs to AIDS victims is patchy. In particular, treating drug addicts poses a challenge, said deputy Health Minister Wang Longde.
Free condom distribution should be ramped up and treatment centers opened in more places, the report said. About 80% of all HIV infections are still linked to intravenous drug user and commercial sex. National infection levels are still relatively low at 0.05%. But in some areas of the southwestern province of Yunan, western Xinjiang and central Henan HIV rates among pregnant women is higher than 1%, which meets the UNAIDS standards for a generalized epidemic.
AIDS relief workers have in the past accused China of not doing enough to combat the disease and discrimination against victims. But the government has stepped up spending and publicity as part of its drive to keep the number of total victims below 1.5 million for the next five years.
China and the WHO had warned the disease could strike as many as 10 million people by the year 2010, a scenario that is now increasingly unlikely, Mr. Bekedam said. In fact, using better data collection from a wider range of places, health authorities have actually lowered their earlier estimates for the number of infected by about one third, from 840,000.
Officials said the estimate was lowered mostly because of a more accurate view of the spread of HIV among groups most at risk and those in central China who were infected through selling blood and blood plasma. The spread of disease appears to be more localized than at first believed, said Joel Rehnstrom, China coordinator for UNAIDS.
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