HIV/AIDS patients still face rejection and discrimination in China’s leading hospitals

Source: South China Morning Post

When 34-year-old “Frank” was diagnosed with a varicocele, a common disorder of blood vessels around the testicles, his doctor told him he needed surgery.

The operation would be routine but after he told doctors he was HIV-positive, the procedure was postponed several times.

“The doctors said my problem was complicated, so they had to postpone my surgery. But I know they don’t want to do it because I have HIV,” he said.More

19/8/2016

HIV/AIDS Awareness Takes Second Place to 'Stability Maintenance' in Xinjiang

Source: Radio Free Asia

Authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region are allowing HIV infection rates to spiral out of control by favoring “stability maintenance” education over efforts to promote a better understanding of the disease and its causes, sources say.

As of October 2015, about 38,238 people were living with HIV/AIDS in Xinjiang, according to figures released by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Health and Family Planning Committee.

Now, with 2,591 people in Xinjiang found to be newly infected during the first six months of this year, the HIV virus has swept “like a flood” across the region’s mostly Muslim southern areas, a clinic owner in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Peyziwat (Jiashi) county told RFA’s Uyghur Service.More

18/8/2016

HIV-Positive Gay Men Find Little Support in China

Source: Sixth Tone

More than seven months after he was confirmed HIV-positive, Xiao Wang still doesn’t know whether he should start taking antiretroviral drugs. The 26-year-old, who lives in a small city in China’s heartland, believes he was exposed to the virus last when he had sex with another man.

For Wang, just getting confirmation that he was positive was a nightmare. In fact, he received conflicting test results along the way: first positive, then negative, then positive again. But that wasn’t the worst of it. In a recent interview with Sixth Tone, Wang spoke emotionally of a total lack of support in terms of psychological counseling and practical information on how to live with HIV.

“I was utterly devastated when I first learned the news, and still they looked at me with cold faces,” said Wang. “None of the CDC or hospital staff were patient enough to explain the details of how to access the free drugs, let alone comfort me,” he said, referring to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Nanyang, a city in the central Chinese province of Henan where he first took the HIV test.More

16/8/2016

University fined for suspending man with HIV

Source: The China Post

The Centerfor Disease Control (CDC) fined the National Defense University NT$1 million on Monday for suspending an HIV-positive student, who accused the school of discriminating against him based on his health status.

The fine handed down Monday was the first ever issued to a university for violating a student's right to an education.

It is also the heaviest penalty ever issued by the CDC for discrimination against people with HIV.