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Media releases > HIV & AIDS threat in China
HIV & AIDS remains biggest threat to health in China - SARS and bird 'flu dwarfed by growing epidemic
( 20 January 2004)
International development charity VSO announced today that China is facing a far worse epidemic than those currently making the headlines. HIV & AIDS have the potential to devastate communities in provinces throughout the country. Officially, under one million people have contracted HIV in China but the real figure is reported to be far higher.
It has become clear in the last year that the Chinese government are recognising a potential disaster and are becoming more open to ways of tackling the virus and are increasingly willing to seek support from organisations like VSO.
In China's 2003 application to the Global Fund the Chinese Government reports HIV prevalence rates among rural blood donors ranging from 4-40% across seven provinces with a combined total population of 420 million; and in all seven provinces blood donation is a common source of supplementary income. (Country Coordinating Mechanism, 2003 Proposal to the Global fund, Section III, p.13)
The problem is immense and with increasing numbers of intravenous drug users and commercial sex workers testing positive the time bomb is close to exploding. China has 3 million registered sex workers and many more unregistered and awareness of the need for condom use amongst both worker and client is very low.
Tim Wainwright, Director of VSO's China programme office says that:
The level of awareness at grass roots level is terribly low. Volunteers working only hours from the Burmese border - where HIV is reputed to have first entered China - report their students (aged late teens and early 20s) don't even know the basic facts of life, let alone how to protect themselves from HIV.
The truth is no one really knows the real level of HIV infection as voluntary testing is at a very low level. Failure to provide free or at least affordable testing is partly to blame but because of the stigma attached to the virus it is unlikely that many people would want to get tested even if they thought they were positive.
Tim Wainwright continues that:
Before I came to China I worked on Southern African issues. Many of the same risk factors that caused the epidemic in that region are also present in China - large number of migrant workers, poor health system, widespread STDs etc - Having seen the devastating impact AIDS is having on Africa, I am determined to do all I can to work with the Chinese to help their country avoid the same fate.
VSO's is ensuring that all its volunteers throughout China are bringing HIV & AIDS education into their jobs whether they be teacher trainers, nurse trainers or from any other profession. The charity also places HIV specialists in key areas. Annette Kobusingye from Uganda has just successfully completed her year's placement as technical advisor for the China-UK Programme for HIV Prevention and Care in Kun Ming, Yunnan Province.
The programme has centres in several provinces. In Yunnan the work is focused on detox and rehab for intravenous drug users. Around 40% of users at the centre are HIV positive and Annette has developed the care programme with a view to establishing a model for best practice to be repeated in other centres.
Raising awareness of the virus is also vital and two VSO volunteers, Susan Cook and Antony Makepeace have worked with their students on making an AIDS ribbon using the traditional Chinese method of knotting coloured string, which is a particular tradition during Chinese New Year. The idea is spreading around China, both via volunteers and UN agencies, who are supporting the idea. Money raised will go to the benefit of people living with AIDS in China.
To talk to a spokesperson and for more information about VSO's work in China and on HIV more generally, please contact Adam Bowers.
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