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.

Frightening Statistics

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.

"Local officials are more concerned about protecting their reputations," Li said. "They don't want their towns or villages to be known as places with AIDS patients. They fear it will affect their ability to attract new businesses and investments."

Dying Villages

Two years ago, Li led ABC News to a remote village in Henan province to see the rural face, the real face of AIDS in China.

We had to enter and leave the village of Shuang Miao at night. We all risked arrest, or worse, if local police discovered our presence.

This was one of hundreds of small, impoverished villages where AIDS had taken root with a vengeance.

In some villages, up to a third of the residents were infected and all had been cut off from the outside world for years. And local officials were still determined to keep them cut off.

Li introduced us to the sick and dying, the widows and the orphans, people who had contracted AIDS years before by making blood donations in exchange for a few dollars.

The blood donations schemes were run by local syndicates and corrupt officials who sold off the plasma from the blood to large medical companies.

The plasma was a witch's brew of infected blood and filthy re-used needles that literally mainlined the AIDS virus into entire rural communities.

When villagers began to suffer and die, local officials simply hid the truth and even tried to isolate infected villages with roadblocks and armed guards.

That didn't stop the news anymore than it stopped the virus from spreading.

Li and a number of other dedicated activists kept raising the alarm at great risk to their own lives. After our visit to Shuang Miao, Li was attacked, beaten and threatened by a group of thugs.

Despite years of official harassment and threats, Li has never abandoned his cause to raise public awareness.

Earlier this year, he was among the recipients of the Reebok Human Rights Award for his efforts in uncovering the AIDS crisis in Henan province.

A More Open Policy?

Today, HIV/AIDS is being talked about openly in China.

Today, there are front-page articles and editorials on the need for all Chinese to join the fight against HIV/AIDS.

China speaks of the need for compassion and education to replace fear and ignorance in dealing with the epidemic.

But the instinct to keep bad news hidden, to protect powerful officials from embarrassment, and protect the public image of the ruling Communist Party is still a powerful one in China

As China prepared to mark World AIDS Day this week, another of China's prominent AIDS activists, Dr. Wan Yanhai, was secretly taken into police custody and held for three days.

His detainment happened just before he was scheduled to host an international AIDS-prevention conference in Beijing.

Wan was finally released, but the conference had to be canceled.

Only "officially sanctioned meetings" are allowed to mark World AIDS Day in China.

Perhaps there will be more commitment and candor for World AIDS Day 2007.