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Yunnan, Sichuan tackle HIV/AIDS issue
By Di Fang, Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-02-28 07:54
Anyone from Southwest China's Yunnan Province who tests positive for HIV
should let his or her spouse know within a month after the test result is
confirmed, a new province regulation stipulates.
If an HIV carrier refuses, a special medical worker will complete the task,
the local regulation says.
Chen Juemin, head of the Yunnan Provincial Health Bureau, said informing
testees and their spouses of the outcome of an HIV test is a critical part of
AIDS screening.
The new regulation has detailed rules about what should be told to whom and
how. It also sets out some specific rules about informing people in prison or
held in custody.
According to the regulation, the testees should be first to be informed. If
the outcome is positive, medical workers must tell the person face to face. If
the test is negative, telephone and other means are acceptable.
The spouses of people who test positive must also be informed, whether by the
testees themselves or by medical workers. Free HIV tests and consulting services
are available for the spouses of HIV carriers.
In another development, much headway has been made in Gongmin Village in
Zizhong, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, in creating a bias-free environment
for local HIV/AIDS sufferers.
The village is believed to have the country's second largest number of HIV
carriers after Wenlou Village in Shangcai, Central China's Henan Province.
Seventy-eight farmers in the town have been confirmed as HIV carriers. Most of
them contracted the deadly virus while selling blood in Henan in 1995.
Thirty-eight of them have died.
It is now common to see an HIV carrier playing poker in a crowded teahouse.
This would have been unimaginable three years ago.
At that time, whenever HIV carriers stepped into a teahouse, other customers
would leave immediately. They could not sell vegetables they had planted because
nobody wanted to come into contact with them.
"All the HIV carriers had long hair, for barbers in the town refused to cut
their hair," said Qin, who was diagnosed as a carrier in 1996 while working on a
construction site in Yanji in Northeast China's Jilin Province. He had sold
blood in Henan in the previous year.
In 2000, the country's largest bilateral co-operative project in the
prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and AIDS
started with a grant of 15.3 million pounds from the Department for
International Development (DFID) of Britain. The project was first implemented
in Southwest China's Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, which have a high incidence
of AIDS, and is intended to be a role model to be emulated nationwide.
In February 2002, Zizhong started trial implementation of the project by
issuing a questionnaire which showed that the most cherished desire of HIV
carriers was eradication of prejudice, said Wu Xiaomin, a medic from the county
epidemic station who oversees the implementation of the project.
Since February 2002, the county has held 40 training classes teaching nearly
4,000 county officials, medical workers, teachers, students, policemen, HIV
carriers and their families how the virus is spread and how to prevent it.
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