China's attitude towards AIDS has changed
China is more transparent than India and Russia. This old city is located in the mountainous southwestern China. Here, heroin consumption has caused AIDS, which has led to death, discrimination and official denial. Typical of AIDS data. Over the past 18 months, China ’s top leaders have begun to attach great importance to AIDS and have formulated a series of related policies. Not long ago, China also denied that there was an AIDS problem in its territory and tried to cover up the fact that, because of the irregularities in blood sales, countless farmers were infected with AIDS. Even at the moment, the policies of some cities are still trying to cover up the problem.
But many places like the old one have begun to implement the new policies of the central government, including the replacement of injection needles and the provision of condoms in hotels. At the same time, the Ministry of Health plans to implement these measures across the country. There are currently 8 methadone detoxification centers in China, but the number is expected to increase to 5,000 in 2010.
"There are still many countries that violate the law," Dr. Peter Piot said of the needle and methadone project, he is the executive officer of UNAIDS. International experts agree with China's current approach. They believe that the current Chinese government has changed far more than India and Russia in dealing with AIDS. Compared with China, their AIDS problem is more serious.
"Obviously, both the country's top leader and the Yunnan provincial government have seen the seriousness of the problem," Randall To bias, coordinator of the Bush Administration's Global AIDS Prevention Program, in June Earlier, he and Dr. Piot made the above observations when visiting Yunnan Province.
Dr. Piot said that the turning point was in 2003-when SARS swept through China, the Chinese government gradually realized that infectious diseases might not only bring health threats but also political threats. "SARS is really different," he said. "Once everyone thinks that SARS may become a potential threat to social problems, then everyone talks about SARS."
The signal of a change in the attitude of the Chinese central government is that Premier Wen Jiabao visited AIDS patients in 2003, and later President Hu Jintao made the same move. Along with these symbolic actions, the government budget for AIDS prevention and new policies (such as needle replacement and condom use) has doubled. In 2002, condom advertising was banned.
Only 1/9 of the infected people in China know that they have the virus, and the large number of problems that still exist are discouraging. The public health care system in rural China has nearly collapsed, and there are few formal trained AIDS prevention workers. Only 1/9 of the infected people know that they carry the H.I.V virus. In 2003, a free antiretroviral drug treatment plan was quickly introduced into China by the government, but there were serious problems because about one-fifth of patients were reluctant to participate.
Experts said that China does not face the AIDS crisis like Africa, but they also predict that if the Chinese government cannot continue its efforts, more than 10 million Chinese will suffer from AIDS by 2010. Since 2003, the Chinese government estimates that 840,000 people have a positive H.I.V test, 80,000 AIDS patients, and about 150,000 people have died of AIDS.
Heroin flows into Yunnan from China's neighboring countries Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, followed by the H.I.V virus. The first case in Yunnan Province appeared in 1989. Yunnan now has a population of 44 million, but there are only 200 professionally trained AIDS prevention medical workers.
At the methadone clinic, a portion of Dr. Ming Xiangdong ’s salary was paid by the United States. He said that since the clinic opened in April 2004, more than 270 drug addicts have come to seek help. Due to the increasing number of consultants, a larger clinic was opened in early June this year. However, the relevant government regulations emphasize that only those drug addicts who fail to completely quit drugs at the government's compulsory drug treatment center can receive methadone treatment-only the most serious drug addicts.
An old women's center also received sponsorship from the United States. Here, prostitutes are receiving education to prevent H.I.V infection. Staff tried to persuade infected prostitutes to stop engaging in sexual services, or at least use condoms. However, the high income from prostitution has caused many prostitutes infected with H.I.V to keep their condition secret.
As medical officials began to lend a helping hand to these prostitutes and drug addicts, the police in Yunnan Province also took relevant measures. AIDS prevention and treatment workers are concerned that the recent province-wide clean-up of drug users will likely increase the risk of H.I.V infection for some people due to underground transactions. In other provinces, the situation is much worse: websites that provide HIV information to gay people have been blocked. According to a widely reported news, in a southern city, the police broke into a treatment center and arrested drug addicts who sought help from doctors.
Another direct challenge facing the central government is the lack of anti-reverse transcriptase drugs. Many drug addicts cannot tolerate free medicines issued by the hospital, but the government has so far no alternative medicines. Our work has achieved some results and progress, "said Chen Juemin, director of the Yunnan Provincial Health Department." But this is only the first step of the Long March. "
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