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"China urges HIV tests amid crisis
warning"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(01/12/05)
BEIJING: The Chinese government yesterday urged its citizens to get tested
for HIV, as activists warned that the country faced another AIDS crisis
surrounding people who contracted the disease from blood transfusions.
“We encourage our citizens to have HIV tests in qualified institutions,”
Health Minister Gao Qiang told a news conference on the eve of World AIDS
Day.
“We don't want to see a situation ... where a mother who has AIDS passes it
to her child.”
It was the first time a top government official had called on citizens to
get tested, which a Western AIDS expert working in China said was a step
forward.
“It's very significant. It means they're working with HIV positive people
seriously,” said the expert who requested anonymity.
The Chinese government admitted for the first time in 2001 that the nation
had an AIDS problem, while also acknowledging a scandal involving poor
farmers getting the disease from selling blood in state-approved schemes.
But it has said little about those who contracted AIDS from the nation's
unsafe blood supply, which activists say is a growing concern.
Doctors in the countryside as well as in smaller cities bought blood from
blood sellers instead of blood banks up until the late 1990s.
Even the blood banks' supply was not entirely safe, as the government did
not strictly enforce screening regulations until the past few years.
AIDS activists and victims said patients were now beginning to find out they
contracted the disease when doctors gave them transfusions during routine
procedures such as caesarean sections or abortions.
Many learned they had contracted the disease only after they had infected
their husband and given birth to infected children.
Victims and activists issued a statement at the end of a conference here
yesterday demanding the government set up a special task force to
investigate the scandal, and immediately instruct all blood or blood product
users from 1987 to 2005 to get tested for HIV.
The group also set up a committee to advice the rights of and compensation
for victims, said the statement from the Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of
Health Education, which organised the conference.
“Unlike the farmers in 'AIDS villages' who sold blood, these people are
spread out and don't know each other,” said Beijing activist Hu Jia.
“They only slowly find out they are HIV positive and that there are others
like them.”
Gao did not say how many people became infected through transfusions, but
admitted the problem existed and expressed sympathy for the victims.
“This problem should really attract the government's attention, and we
should organise specialists and experts to conduct an investigation,” Gao
said.
He said the government would provide free testing for anyone who wanted to
be tested and offer assistance to these “innocent” people.
In another unusual move, Gao also said courts should take up the cases.
“We hope cases will be handled in a fair and legal way,” he added.
Many victims have said local courts are ordered to reject their attempts to
seek justice.
China has maintained for years it has 840,000 people who are HIV-positive,
although independent estimates put the figure much higher. — AFP
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