Gays targeted for monitoring
14/8/2006 11:02
State authorities are considering a plan to monitor gay men and other
high-risk groups for sexually transmitted diseases in an effort to control the
spread of the AIDS virus.
The Ministry of Health is now soliciting
opinions from local disease control and prevention centers on a national plan
for monitoring STDs.
Under the plan, monitoring stations would survey the
incidence of STDs among prostitutes, gays and long-distance drivers and test
their knowledge about STDs.
The five sexually transmitted diseases to be
checked are gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia trachomatis, human papillomavirus and
genital herpes.
The number of sexually transmitted infections diagnosed
in China is on the rise. There were 126,400 cases of syphilis in the country
last year, an increase of 35.79 percent over 2004, and 180,300 cases of
gonorrhea.
Homosexuality, while no longer officially branded a mental
disorder, is still an off-limits subject for many people in
China.
Chinese health authorities estimate there are 5 million to 10
million gay men in the country and about 80 percent of them admit they know
nothing about the spread of HIV/AIDS, according to a survey conducted in
2004.
China reported 75,000 new HIV infections last year.
The
monitoring plan requires local disease control centers to keep STD data
confidential and report it only to the national center.
The provinces and
regions with the highest incidence of STDs are Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu,
Shanghai and Jiangxi.
The problem is becoming so severe that an
increasing number of infants are being born with sexually transmitted
infections, according to a report by China's Center for Disease Control and
Prevention under the Ministry of Health.
Analysts say STDs are on the
rise because China has a weak monitoring system that fails to report infections
in a timely fashion.
Xinhua news
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