The Plague of HIV in China

by Michael Jones · 2009-03-30 08:09:00 UTC
Topics:

China HIV

How scary is this: the number of new cases of HIV reported by the Chinese government has risen 45 percent in the past two years. HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death among infectuous diseases in the country, with 7,000 people dying in the first nine months of 2008.  And what population is being hit the hardest?

This might not come as a surprise.  It's gay men.  And one of the reasons?  Well, according to Dr. Jiang Hua, one of China's delegates to the United Nations general assembly on AIDS: "China's continuing taboos over homosexuality [are] helping to spread the disease."

The numbers are profoundly scary.

  • In the city of Chongqing, the largest city in the world with a population of 32 million, 20 percent of gay men have HIV/AIDS;

  • In Chengdu, a city the size of London, experts say that the infection rate will hit 35 percent by 2010

Dr. Jiang Hua told the Telegraph that homophobia is wreaking havoc on public health in China.  "Many young people at universities, when we survey them, say they have sex in hidden situations and that they try to finish as quickly as possible because they fear getting caught. In those situations, it is very difficult to persuade people always to wear a condom."  He also estimated that only one in ten gay men are wearing condoms - in large part because of the taboos surrounding gay sex in China.

Ugh.  If anyone needed proof that homophobia can have massive health implications, this is it.  It's also a reminder that just because a country decriminalizes homosexuality (which China did in the 1990s), it doesn't mean that prejudices toward LGBT people disappear.

Another expert, Professor Zhang Beichuan of Qingdao University, had this to say: "Although we have been saying that prevention is a top priority, the reality in China is basically that we focus on treatment.  We treat people when they get sick, but by then, it's too late."

It's pretty hard to disagree with that statement about prevention.  China - much like the U.S. - needs to develop a national strategy to deal with HIV/AIDS.  Otherwise, numbers like this are just going to keep getting grimmer and grimmer.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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