Beijing – China on Wednesday revised down the number of people living in the country with the HIV virus, but international health agencies warned that with 70,000 new infections last year, there was no room for complacency.
They also said the virus was no longer restricted to drug users and those who sold blood, but had begun to spread quickly in the general population.
“China’s HIV infections have been linked to high-risk behavior. But now sex work is moving it toward the general population,” said Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization’s representative in China.
By the end of 2005, China had an estimated 650,000 people infected with HIV, 75,000 of whom had full-blown AIDS, according to the study by WHO, China’s Ministry of Health and the U.N. AIDS agency.
Bekedam said the new infection rate, roughly 200 cases a day, showed the situation in China was “more serious than we thought.” He spoke at a news conference announcing the new figures.
Most of the new cases were intravenous drug users or sex workers and their clients.
But there was a growing number of infected pregnant mothers and spouses of the clients of sex workers, the report said.
While a ban on the sale of blood in the late 1990s reduced the number of infections through transfusions, Beke- dam said unprotected sex was now becoming the primary means of spreading the virus.
He called for more awareness campaigns in China and more free testing and treatment for HIV-positive people.
The biggest challenge facing China will be removing the stigma of HIV infection that prevents people from being tested or treated, Bekedam said.
Free testing and counseling and free anti-retroviral treatment for the poor have been offered. However, people demanding better treatment and care are still often arrested or harassed by authorities.
AIDS activists have criticized Chinese authorities for being slow to acknowledge the extent of the disease in the country. But in recent years Beijing has become increasingly open about its epidemic.
