HIV/AIDS in China
[1][2] Figures from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and UNAIDS estimate that there were 1.25 million people living with HIV/AIDS in China at the end of 2018, with 135,000 new infections from 2017.
[4] While HIV is a type of sexually transmitted infection,[5] the first years of the epidemic in China were dominated by non-sexual transmission routes, particularly among users of intravenous drugs through practices such as needle sharing.
SIV jumped from primates to humans several times, although the primary strain of HIV responsible for the global pandemic, HIV-1 group M, is traceable to the region surrounding Kinshasa,[11] likely having initially crossed from chimpanzees around 1920.
Before either of these routes of infection were identified, however, a handful of people contracted HIV after receiving transfusions of contaminated hemophilia blood products from the United States.
[31] The disease spread over the next several years, confined mainly to drug using populations of ethnic minorities[32] in poorer, rural areas, reaching other high-risk groups and provinces by 1995.
An internal report compiled in August 2002 by the Henan Ministry of Health, leaked by prominent AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, estimated that 35–45% of blood donors in some areas of the province had been infected due to poor safety precautions in clinics.
Shuping Wang and Gao Yaojie, two female doctors from Henan, mounted campaigns to expose the dangerous practices they saw in the early 1990s that put donors at risk for HIV infection.
[46] Both Gao and Wang eventually left China for the United States, citing apparent government harassment and intimidation resulting from their advocacy efforts.
[36] In 2004, while acknowledging some victims had contracted HIV because of inadequate hygiene in blood donation centers and agreeing to provide compensation, authorities still sought to classify such infections as resultant of use of drugs or prostitution in official records.
[47] While the majority of early infections occurred as a result of intravenous injection transmission or tainted blood supplies, prostitution also played a role spreading HIV/AIDS.
[48] Estimates from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and UNAIDS calculated approximately 1.25 million people living with HIV/AIDS in China at the end of 2018, with 135,000 new infections over the previous year.
Passive disease surveillance methods were established in 1986, with local clinics and medical providers reporting confirmed cases progressively through district, city, and provincial channels, and then ultimately to three separate national agencies under the Ministry of Health.
[79] Increased migration from poorer regions with high HIV prevalence to urban areas and somewhat liberalized attitude towards homosexuality in China over the last two decades, resulting in more overall sexual activity, have been hypothesized as factors driving this trend.
[87] The first phase of Chinese HIV/AIDS policy ran from the first recorded in-country death in 1985, of a tourist in Beijing, until 1988/89, when the identified epidemic pattern expanded following the discovery of the outbreak in Yunnan.
[88] HIV/AIDS was commonly viewed as a consequence of a Western lifestyle, and thus government efforts concentrated on protecting China from foreign transmission and promoting moral behavior and traditional values among citizens.
[94][95] The New York Times reported that police in some cities were instructed to prevent foreigners from coming into sexual contact with Chinese people, including in discothèques, dance halls, and brothels.
[96] These early policies of containment, which also included wider crackdowns on drug use and prostitution, did little to check the spread of the disease, and possibly hindered initial identification of its domestic reservoirs.
[99] Social science research on previously taboo topics, including homosexuality, prostitution and drugs, began to proliferate during this period and served to inform policy that did not rely on a view of HIV/AIDS as an inherently Western problem.
[110][111] In 1998, needle exchange programs were implemented in Guangxi, and further expanded in the early 2000s as their efficacy became clear, although some localities and national government departments (such as the Ministry of Public Security) remained opposed to such efforts on the grounds that they encouraged drug use.
[101][7] The 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, which originated in Foshan, China, led to significant changes to public health policy, including shifts in the state's approach to HIV and AIDS.
[115][116] Wu et al. (2007) argue that "SARS showed not only how infectious diseases could threaten economic and social stability but also the effect of China's policies on international health problems", resulting in increased expertise and attention devoted to HIV/AIDS overall.
[37][47][118] In September 2003, Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang outlined five promises of the Chinese government in its fight against AIDS in an address to the United Nations General Assembly's special session on HIV/AIDS.
While lauding the Regulation as a major step forward, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in 2015 reported that local governments often functionally ignored its provisions.
The plaintiff had been rejected for a job as a school teacher by the education bureau of Jinxian County, Jiangxi province specifically due to his HIV status.
[129] TCM research efforts are primarily focused on lessening the side effects of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and protecting against opportunistic infections.
[134] Controlled studies have yet to demonstrate any effect on long-term survival among HIV/AIDS patients, however, its validity is difficult to discern, and research is lacking on the interactions between Western and Traditional Chinese pharmacological products.
Compared to other social movements, the Chinese government has historically been more tolerant of HIV/AIDS-focused NGOs and civil society organizations, relying on them to reach out to marginalized groups most vulnerable to the disease.
[138][139] In 2007, activist Gao Yaojie was placed under house arrest in her home in Zhengzhou in order to prevent her from visiting the United States to receive an award from Vital Voices Global Partnership and meet with Hillary Clinton.
[142] Chinese-American director Ruby Yang has made a documentary about AIDS in rural China, which premiered on 14 June 2006, entitled The Blood of Yingzhou District.
An abridged version of Robert Bilheimer's acclaimed US-made 2003 documentary A Closer Walk was shown on China Central Television (CCTV) on World AIDS Day, 1 December (Friday), 2006, and was rerun Sunday and Monday.
