Aids Spreads in China "Like Africa"

abc ^ | Oct 18, 2006 — | By Tan Ee Lyn — Interview

[Flavius]

BEIJING (Reuters) - AIDS in China has spread beyond high risk groups such as injecting drug users, prostitutes and homosexuals and the country is becoming "like Africa" in how the virus is transmitted, a senior health official says.

"There are 190 new HIV infections every day … and in some high-prevalence areas, nearly one percent of pregnant women are infected with HIV," said Hao Yang, deputy director

[GSlob]

the only meaningful numbers are the RATES of infection in percent, not the absolute numbers [when one has 1.5 billion population, even ostensibly large numbers become a drop in the bucket].

[A CA Guy]

If Chinese men go to prostitutes with aids and then back to their females. The women will catch it and those born may also have it.

Happens in Africa like that as well.

[blam]

I'm suprised this was reported....remember the Olympics will be in China in 2008, they don't want any 'bad press.'

[rawcatslyentist]

Not good news in a society that routinely practices accupuncture.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

1% is supposed to be the tipping point, and the United States is already there. Also, 1.3 billion for China. .2 billion is still 200 million, or around 70% percent of the American citizenry (taking some people off the 300 million who are immigrants).

[GSlob]

Well, given their one child policy, they DO sound overpopulated.

[YdontUleaveLibs]

Out of the 3 million or so Americans that have AIDS well over half are gay men. It still hasn't hit middle America as hard as AIDs activists claim.

[babygene]

"If Chinese men go to prostitutes with aids and then back to their females. The women will catch it and those born may also have it."

The problem with your theory is that it's very rare for a man to catch aids from a woman. Even a prostitute...

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

I think it i more like 1 million total (HIV and AIDS cases). Gay men are the largest group however young women are making a very quick gain, however I believe the fudge the numbers because gay men do not want the public to realize the truth. It is interesting how low the cases of aids/HIV are among lesbians with multiple partners compared to gay men.

[spetznaz]

Please explain.

[Captainpaintball]

They can send them here to destroy our health care system and spread disease. I'm sure they are sending them here. In fact I'll bet my LIFE on it.

[andyahoo]

India's AIDS population is much bigger than China's.

[Jezebelle]

Well over half? I would think it would be something in the 70%-80% range.

[SR 50]

ping

[txzman]

Uh, WRONG!

[Caipirabob]

I can only pray that this is an major exaggeration of the problem. I honestly do NOT want this to happen to the Chinese people.

[wodinoneeye]

Lose a few hundred Million to AIDS .... sounds like a possibly government sponsored program in China (who has too many people it doesnt know what to do with....).

Wait and see what measures they take to 'handle' the epidemic.

[Joe Boucher]

I'm sure the chi-coms treat hiv positive folks the same as we do here.
Or else they shoot them in the snow.

[babygene]

Unlike some other sexually transmitted diseases, the transmission of aids requires a significant viral load to be transmitted to the person infected.

The reason aids is not normally transmitted from a female to a male is that body fluids are not generally transfered from the female to the male in significant quantiles through sex, just as they are not in more casual contact like kissing.

To illustrate this; there are roughly 250,000 street walkers in NYC. Over 1/2 of them are infected with HIV. Assume they each do 10 tricks a night with heterosexual males (each who also has sex with a wife or girlfriend).

You can see that this would spread through the heterosexual population like wildfire. As many as many as a quarter of a million new heterosexual infections a day. The fact is, it doesn't happen. Most aids cases in the U.S. involve queers and IV drug users.

The bad news is that women having unprotected sex are vulnerable, as well as the children they give birth to.

The good news is that it will never be an epidemic in the heterosexual population.