Shanghai Daily news

With more than 1,000 HIV cases reported in Heilongjiang, it is unsettling to learn there are no AIDS patients in provincial hospitals.
When the Global AIDS Program kicked off in the province two months ago, AIDS experts came to realize that the number of Heilongjiang's HIV carriers was increasing by 30 percent.
Raising the alarm level even more, the province's only AIDS treatment center reports it hasn't treated a single patient in two years.
It is obvious that, apart from those who aren't aware they've acquired the AIDS-carrying virus, some people are avoiding HIV checks or hiding the truth about their infection. Societal attitudes bear part of the blame.
Feng Zhonglian, director of a Harbin AIDS hot line, told Xinhua news agency that many potential HIV carriers believed they would lose their freedom if they were diagnosed with the deadly virus by a hospital or disease control center.
These people, together with those who choose to avoid treatment and therefore lose the opportunity to contain the disease at an early stage, gamble not only with their own lives but also pose a huge threat to healthy people.
Behind these irresponsible behaviors are a revenge mentality, and more important, an AIDS-phobia. Not surprisingly, both are partly caused by society's ignorance of AIDS and intolerant attitudes toward AIDS victims.
Many people don't have the slightest idea what AIDS is or how it is transmitted, but nine out of 10 do know the disease can be fatal and there is no ultimate cure.
Living in a society where the majority believe that eating at the same table with an AIDS patient would kill them, HIV carriers are suffering much more than just physical pains.
It is high time that society educated people about AIDS. It could  save patients' lives - and ours.