China More Committed to Fighting HIV/AIDS Than Ever -- Or So It Seems

BEIJING, Dec. 1, 2006 — -- A televised concert by Chinese rock stars, school classrooms decorated with red ribbons, and 5,000 Beijing taxi drivers handing out AIDS information to their passengers.

China marked this year's World AIDS Day with more color, commitment and candor than ever. Or so it seemed.

But as symbols of China's battle against the epidemic, the widespread and very public AIDS awareness activities represent both good news and bad news.

The good news: After years of denial, China has finally accepted the serious threat of HIV/AIDS within its borders.

That acceptance started in 2002, when the country's senior leaders announced their determination to battle HIV/AIDS with education, medical research, medicine available to all who need it, and the promise that those infected with the disease would be treated with dignity and compassion.

Here's the bad news: The need for those promises to be kept today is greater than China ever imagined it would be.

According to China's health ministry, there are now 183,733 registered cases of HIV/AIDS, a rise of nearly 30 percent over 2005. But officials acknowledge that the real number of infections could be as high as 650,000.

Nongovernmental organizations say there are also growing indications that the virus is spreading rapidly from high-risk groups, such as prostitutes and intravenous drug users, into the general population.

A pattern that is all too familiar in many developing nations is that men contract the disease from unprotected sex with prostitutes and pass the virus to their wives, who then pass it on to their children.

By some estimates, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in China could be many times that 650,000 figure. That would make the epidemic here as widespread as some areas of Africa.

Li Dan, a prominent AIDS activist in China, says he is encouraged by the more open attitude toward HIV/AIDS by China's central government. But local officials are still blocking more enlightened policies.