14 DAY TRIAL // The mighty Chinese communism is now facing the scourge of the 21st century: HIV.
If until now intravenous drug use was the main cause of new HIV infections in China, a new official report shows that the first cause of HIV transmission in China is unprotected sex, and the virus is spreading from high-risk groups to the general public.
Of the 70,000 new Chinese cases of HIV infections in 2005, about 50 % got the virus via sex, states a new report made by the Ministry of Health and the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's the first time since 1989, when the first HIV infection was detected, for sex to top the transmission list nationwide," Gao Qi, of the China HIV/AIDS Information Network, told China Daily.
About 650,000 Chinese are HIV positive or suffer of AIDS, that's why the government is increasingly co-operating in fighting the issue, even if efforts to stop the infection face the conservative sexual behavior and suspicion of non-governmental organizations.
The report reveals that 10% of the sexually active Chinese males have had sex with a prostitute at least once, and the government programs are focusing on promoting condom use and AIDS education among sex workers, but they are also targeted towards gay men, who represent 7.3 % of the new sexually transmitted HIV.
Another survey made by China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention showed that even if Chinese teenagers begin sex life at an earlier age, 40% do not use condoms the first time and they have limited knowledge about aspects and issues concerning AIDS. "They know little about HIV/AIDS, let alone preventative measures," An Jiaao, of the centre's National Institute for Health Education told Chian Daily.
HIV and AIDS became a major issue in China in the 1990s when hundreds of thousands of villagers, most of them from the central province of Henan, got infected with HIV via botched blood-selling networks.