Assessing HIV/AIDS Initiatives in China - Center for Strategic and ...

4 Assessing HIV/AIDS Initiatives in China
continued treatment. 10 At the end of 2005, the number of patients who had been enrolled
in China CARES reached 20,453 in 605 counties within 28 provinces. 11
Awareness and education programs have been expanded. According to official
reporting, by the end of 2005, more than 120 million HIV/AIDS information, education,
and communication materials had been published, and 34.9 million persons had received
face-to-face information and education. Surveillance sites have been expanded, and plans
are afoot to introduce more aggressive interventions to stem the spread of HIV among
certain marginalized populations such as IDUs and CSWs, including condom promotion
and distribution, needle and syringe exchange programs, and methadone replacement
therapy to help get addicts off of heroin.
HIV testing at local levels has been expanding rapidly. Very large batches of
hundreds of thousands of tests have been carried out in Henan province, where most HIV
cases are former plasma donors, and in Yunnan province, where most HIV cases are
IDUs. For instance, Yunnan carried out 418,630 HIV tests in 2004, compared to the
cumulative 980,000 tests carried out between 1989 and 2003. Both testing campaigns
revealed significant increases in new cases, with Yunnan province doubling its number of
cumulative registered cases. Yunnan province has an estimated 80,000 HIV-positive
individuals, with slightly more than one-third having been identified. The National
Center for HIV/AIDS at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
completed a massive testing program in the summer of 2005, testing two million
individuals in central Chinese provinces who had taken part in blood and blood plasma
donations in the mid- to late-1990s.
A national HIV test of the prison system took place between November 2004 and
March 2005. While national results have not been reported, Shandong province reported
in July 2005 that 72,801 tests were conducted throughout the provincial prison system,
revealing 221 cases. In August 2005, Beijing municipal authorities did not reveal the
results of their survey but announced that routine compulsory HIV tests will be
conducted on all prisoners in the future. On June 3, 2005, the Ministry of Health gave
notice to all departments to gradually begin institutionalizing routine testing for drug
users entering detoxification centers throughout the country.
In January 2006, the State Council announced long-awaited HIV/AIDS regulations
that will come into effect on March 1, 2006. The new regulations cover seven chapters—
general rules, publicity and education, prevention and control, cure and relief, guarantee
measures, legal responsibilities, and supplementary articles—and are important for
bringing greater national attention to the plight of those who have contracted HIV, while
also codifying antistigma and discrimination rules. The regulations also stipulate the role
of different government agencies at national and local levels and spell out the rights and
obligations of HIV-positive persons and their families.
10 National HIV/AIDS Treatment Program director Zhang Fujie presentation in Beijing, August 18, 2005.
Of the 19,456 persons enrolled for treatment, about 8 percent eventually dropped out of the program and
about 10 percent passed away after treatment began.
11 People’s Republic of China Ministry of Health, Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, and World
Health Organization, 2005 Update on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic and Response in China (Beijing: National
Center for AIDS/STD Prevention and Control, January 24, 2006), p. ii.