Girl with AIDS Receives One-on-one Lessons from Headmaster

Source：womenofchina.cn

Sha Sha is an 11-year-old girl living in Ningxiang County, central China's Hunan Province. She should have been in grade five this year. However, she was instead banished from school after her schoolmates' parents found out that she had been diagnosed with AIDS. In response, Yin Pengbo, the headmaster of Chiduan Wanquan Primary School, decided to give Sha Sha private lessons for half a day every week.

Sha Sha applied for a leave of absence from school on September 1, 2014 so she could receive treatment in Changsha, the capital city of central China's Hunan Province. Seven months later, Sha Sha's father died of AIDS.

Sha Sha's case has highlighted the stigma attached to the disease in China, where many sufferers face widespread discrimination. Knowledge about HIV/AIDS is worse in poor, rural areas, such as the community that Sha Sha is from, said Wu Zunyou, Director of China CDC STD and AIDS prevention and control center. Wu said that about 8,000 children under the age of 14 in China have contracted AIDS through mother-to-child transmission, and many of them have a difficult time obtaining compulsory education. More

19/5/2016

‘I felt like a prisoner on death row’: Chinese farmer who lived with wrong diagnosis of Aids for almost a decade

Source: South China Morning Post

A farmer in central China lived as an Aids patient for almost 10 years, was dumped by his family and outcast from society, before he found out that the diagnosis was wrong.

Yang Shoufa, 53, told ThePaper.cnthat his life was “flipped upside down” when the Zhenping county disease control centre told him he had Aids in mid-2004. He felt like he “might as well just die”, said the farmer from Hunan province.

Aids and HIV-positive patients face serious stigma in China.

As a result of the diagnosis, Yang’s wife filed for divorce and left him, taking their three children with her. He was also ostracized by his fellow villagers. Yang said he felt “like a prisoner on death row”.

Never second-guessing the diagnosis, he started taking medication to keep his condition under control. More

21/5/2016

China's Contribution to AIDS Research and Treatment Recognized

Source: womenofchina.cn

A top hospital in Beijing was awarded one of the most famous prizes in the field of HIV treatment and research on Thursday.

Li Ning, president of Beijing YouAn Hospital, was awarded Barry and Martin's Prize for championing treatment and care services for AIDS patients and creating a discrimination-free medical care environment for them in the hospital, according to the prize awarding committee.

"The hospital has made enormous efforts for the treatment of AIDS patients," Martin Gordon, chairman of the London-based Barry and Martin's Trust, said.

The prize was first awarded in 2000, to award people and institutions all over China who have done excellent work in AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

At Thursday's award ceremony, Li, president of Beijing YouAn Hospital, said he would donate all the prize money, totaling 10,000 British pounds, to establish an education fund in the name of Martin Gordon and the hospital to ensure sustainable development of AIDS prevention, treatment and care. More

19/5/2016

Fearing Discrimination, Most Chinese LGBTI Individuals Remain in Closet, Report Concludes

Source: the beijinger

Despite recent developments showing more openness to them among the general population, the vast majority of sexual and gender minorities in China continue to keep their full identities hidden from family, friends and co-workers, a comprehensive report concludes.

In conjunction with Peking University's Department of Sociology and the Beijing LGBT Center, the United Nations Development Project released their "Being LGBTI in China" report on Tuesday, and the findings are somewhat grim but do show a ray of hope for the future.

The report was released in conjunction with the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. (In case you were wondering, LGBTI, in this case, stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex.)