This post is very unusual in the sense that it is a bit long and heavily dependent on my personal experiences.
In May 2009, during my last month of studying abroad in China, instead of taking final exams, the program that I was in, called School Year Abroad, allowed students to form groups and do a research on a topic that was of course about China and that interested us. During our topic brainstorming session, one of my classmates brought up HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS? What is that? Does that disease even exist in China? Not knowing what I was getting myself into, we decided to do a research on HIV/AIDS in China.
This decision that we made changed my life. Literally, forever. Before doing this research, I had no idea what HIV/AIDS was, how big of an effect HIV/AIDS had on China, and firmly believed that the only obstacle in medicine was science and money. But after doing countless number of interviews with HIV/AIDS experts, browsing through numerous HIV/AIDS websites, and exhibiting our findings to fellow students and teachers, I began to realize the gigantic scope of HIV/AIDS and how deep of a problem it was.
First, HIV and AIDS are related, but they are two different things. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, and it is a type of virus that attacks vital cells in our immune system, such as helper T-cells. HIV causes AIDS, which stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. An AIDS patient will suffer from different types of fatal opportunistic infections due to the failing immune system. HIV is transmitted most commonly by sexual intercourse, blood transfusion, breast feeding, and using a infected needle (for drugs or medicinal purposes).
The first case of HIV/AIDS in China was reported in 1985, and supposedly, a foreign traveler brought the virus to China. In subsequent years, the numbers of HIV/AIDS cases in China increased. In China, sex workers, drug users, and plasma/blood donors and recipients are most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Most sex workers in China are migrant workers, who mostly come from rural villages in China. As migrant workers, they usually float around from one city to another city, increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS infections as they travel. For drug users, this problem is most prominent in Southwestern China, especially in Yunnan province where there is a high level of illegal drug activity. HIV virus is transmitted through using the same needle to inject the drug. Lastly, blood transfusion also infects people with HIV/AIDS. If the donated blood and plasma are not screened carefully, then the recipients of blood/plasma donors are vulnerable to HIV virus. The following website provides more detailed information about HIV/AIDS in China: http://www.avert.org/aidschina.htm.
During the research, how HIV/AIDS looked like and functioned was very trivial to what I learned from the research. What I realized can be separated into 3 categories: role of government, role of society, and the role of the patients.
Back in the spring of 2009, the Chinese government’s role in dealing with HIV/AIDS was almost ambivalent. On one hand, the Chinese government appeared to have implemented policies that welcomed HIV/AIDS patients into hospitals for treatments and several NGOs now offer free treatment for HIV/AIDS patients in China. In addition, a policy provides free HIV/AIDS screening. However, people in rural villages still cannot receive these benefits because they do not have a hospital nearby. It takes them many hours or even days to get to the closest hospital to receive treatment. The antiretroviral drugs (ARV) used to treat patients are also outdated; some are outdated by 10 years according to WHO’s standards. Furthermore, the government is still not fully tolerant of HIV/AIDS patients in China. HIV/AIDS patients still cannot get employed easily or lose their job due to their status as a HIV/AIDS patient. For example, a teacher was refused a teaching position due to his HIV positive status. For more details, please refer to http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/11/12/defendant_loses_chinas_first_hiv_jobs_bias_case/.
Chinese society plays a large role in the mental health of HIV/AIDS patients in China. Generally, there is still widespread ignorance of HIV/AIDS and discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients. This is partly due to the lack of sex education in Chinese education system. Furthermore, China is still a relatively conservative country, and topics like sex is not talked about in public because they are considered taboo. In addition, many Chinese people see HIV/AIDS as a “foreigner’s disease,” or a disease that they are somehow immune to. Lastly, many people see HIV/AIDS patients not as patients, but as people who have done something wrong and thus punished for it. Although the society in general is ignorant towards HIV/AIDS, there is still a large group of people who are aware and do their best to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS in China. A good example is Professor Xia Guomei. Her main argument is that HIV/AIDS patients are victims and that they should not be treated as social outcasts. For more information, please refer to the following website: http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/report/101544-1.htm.
The patients themselves are afraid to test and receive treatment for HIV/AIDS, and this fear comes from society. Patients know that if they are diagnosed with the disease, then they know that they only have certain number of years to live. However, the bigger concern is not the effect of disease on their body, but the effect of the disease on the society’s perception of the HIV/AIDS patients. HIV/AIDS patients are discriminated against not only by employers, but also by family members. And the effects of the disease not only affect one generation. A son or daughter of a HIV positive parent might have difficulty in finding a partner because of the social stigma surrounding the disease.
In conclusion, HIV/AIDS is still a major problem in China. There are currently approximately 740,000 people living with HIV in China, and just in 2009, 26,000 people died in China from AIDS. The problem of HIV/AIDS is not just a purely scientific issue. It’s a governmental, societal, and emotional issue. The best way to approach HIV/AIDS in China is to tackle the societal discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients by pushing the government to push for more policies benefiting HIV/AIDS patients and to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
