AIDS rampant among Beijing gays
5/9/2008 17:36
The transmission of HIV/AIDS among gays in the Chinese capital was even
worse than through sex workers, the city's disease control center said
today.
Up to 5 percent of homosexuals in the city were infected, compared
with 0.5 percent of women sex workers, said He Xiong, the Beijing Centers of
Diseases Control and Prevention deputy director.
He attributed the HIV/AIDS
increase among gays to the lack of protection measures during sex.
Some gays
don't have due knowledge on HIV/AIDS, while condoms were used in less than half
their sex acts, he added.
Despite society's increasing tolerance to
homosexuals in recent years, discrimination against them still exists. Gays
usually kept their sexual orientation secret, making it difficult to improve
awareness of the disease among them.
Beijing authorities examined 1 million
blood samples between January and July and found 563 people infected. Among
them, 118 were permanent residents of the city, according to He.
The
percentage of infections from mother to baby, from blood products and needle
sharing among drug addicts had dropped, a sign of the city's prevention
efforts.
While the prevalence of AIDS in China remains low compared with the
total population, the situation is very serious in several provinces affected by
drug trafficking and illegal blood donation.
China had registered about
214,000 HIV cases by July 30 last year, but many HIV-positive people were still
not registered as having the disease, officials said.
According to the last
major survey in 2005 by the Ministry of Health, Joint United Nations Programme
on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people
suffering from HIV in China was estimated at 650,000.
Xinhua
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