HIV Infection Rate Increasing in China

The Telegraph published an article March 30 that indicated incidences of new HIV infection have increased 45 percent recently in China. The article said 45,000 people in mainland China were infected in the first nine months of 2008. 

From the Telegraph:

"This is a nationwide tragedy," said Dr Jiang Hua, one of China's delegates to the United Nations general assembly on Aids.

"I don't think many people understand how soon this plague will hit the Chinese people."

According to Dr Jiang's calculations, the disease is spreading rapidly through gay men in China's cities. In Chongqing, the largest city in the world with 32 million people, the data for last year showed 20 per cent of gay men have Aids. In Chengdu, a city the size of London, Dr Jiang calculates that the infection will hit 35 per cent by next year. In some smaller cities, the proportion has already hit 50 per cent, he added.

This comes despite the country spending hundreds of millions of yuan on HIV/AIDS prevention. As in many parts of the world where the disease is spreading, China's burgeoning infection rates are worsened by societal pressure to conform. Chinese men are expected to marry women and have families. The article indicated gay sex often takes place rapidly in clandestine locations. The men don't use condoms and more than likely don't get tested. This situation makes it easier to spread the disease not only among men who have sex with men, but also with their female sex partners. 

According to data from UNAIDS/WHO the numbers continue to get worse, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. There were two and a half million new cases of HIV worldwide in 2007. (And women account for half of the total number of HIV cases worldwide.) 

In the West, some fear HIV/AIDS will make a comeback especially due to the prevalence of "bareback" sex. It seems to me people still think of HIV as something other people get. When the US media first started talking about it, it was Gays, Haitians, hemophiliacs, and druggies. Now it's druggies, sex workers, and people in Africa. Many people out there aren't protecting themselves. But the disease is still out there. Fast and secret can be more dangerous than you know.