The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that China's prison
population is to be tested for HIV. It will work with the Ministry
of Justice to test inmates in prisons and other correctional
institutions from this month to March next year.
If an inmate is found to be HIV positive, the health authority
will then also test family members, the ministry said, adding that
those with HIV/AIDS will receive proper treatment.
In September this year, a man with AIDS was imprisoned in Hubei
Province for robbery and stealing. Officially, he was the first
known person with AIDS to be sentenced to imprisonment by a Chinese
court.
The police are inclined not to detain people with AIDS, and many
of them are not given custodial sentences as most prisons and
detention houses do not have what they consider to be suitable
facilities.
China has a prison population of 1.5 million in its 670 jails,
and is officially estimated to have 840,000 HIV positive people, of
whom 80,000 have developed AIDS.
China Daily reported on Friday that Heilongjiang
Province has witnessed a sharp growth in the number of people
with HIV/AIDS over recent years.?
The Health Bureau there said that by the end of October, 56 more
had been detected in the province, which has a population of nearly
40 million.
Altogether 178 HIV positive people have been registered since
the province's first AIDS diagnosis was made in 1993, of whom 20
have died.
A large proportion of these, 104, were diagnosed after 2002.
Although the overall incidence in Heilongjiang is still not high,
this dramatic increase of over 50 percent does not bode well.
Blood transmission was thought to account for nearly 60 percent
of infections, sexual intercourse for 16 percent and intravenous
drug use for 6 percent. The method of transmission in the remaining
18 percent is unknown.
"Before 2002, most people diagnosed with AIDS had a history of
drug use or of using prostitutes," said Wu Yuhua from the Virus
Research Institute of the Heilongjiang's Disease Prevention and
Control Center. He added that this is no longer the case.
This year there have been efforts to improve public awareness of
HIV/AIDS, and Executive Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang said on
Thursday that surveillance will be strengthened so as to curb its
spread.
Gao told officials from the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS in China
that nationwide testing of people who used to sell blood has
begun.?
In 2003, the government announced that it would offer free
anti-retroviral therapy to people with AIDS in rural areas and to
those in cities with financial difficulties.
"We hope the free anti-retroviral therapy will soon be expanded
to cover all the places of China," said Gao.
(Xinhua, China Daily, November 26, 2004)
?