CHINA:THE CHINESE government has admitted to a staggering 45 per cent surge in Aids cases last year, saying that changing social attitudes and better data collection were behind the increase.
The health ministry published the data on its website, but gave few details about the large percentage rise in sexually-transmitted diseases or those passed through blood. There was also a rise of 24 per cent in syphilis cases.
"It's been hard over the years to discover the number of Aids patients because of the social stigma. The number discovered has increased dramatically," a ministry spokesman said.
The disease is spreading fast in a country where information about Aids has long been suppressed. For many years, the Chinese said HIV/Aids was a disease that affected foreigners and could be passed on through shaking hands or sharing chopsticks. The government has finally acknowledged it faces a battle in resolving the rise in HIV/Aids infections. The disease is now mainly sexually-transmitted, whereas previously it was mostly caused by intravenous drug use.
The government has increased its estimate of the number of people living with HIV/Aids in China to 700,000 from an earlier estimate of 650,000. The previous year, China lowered its estimate of the number of people with HIV/Aids to 650,000 from 840,000, despite repeated warnings from international experts that the disease was spreading due to ignorance and because many people are too afraid or too poor to seek help.
The UN has warned that China could have 10 million cases of HIV by 2010 unless it takes steps to educate the public and fight the epidemic.
A major advance in breaking down the stigma attached to HIV/Aids came in 2003 when Premier Wen Jiabao became China's first senior leader to publicly shake hands with Aids patients, marking a significant change in government policy on the disease. President Hu Jintao has also been photographed embracing Aids patients.
As well as the traditional routes of spreading HIV/Aids, such as prostitution and intravenous drug use, the disease in China has been spread by unsanitary, uncontrolled blood banks that travelled around rural areas buying blood. Around 70,000 people have been infected through contaminated blood transfusions.