Staggering Ignorance of HIV Revealed in China
By Stephen Pincock
Originally published by Reuters Health, July 9, 2002
BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters Health) — An alarming degree of ignorance about HIV/AIDS among Chinese people has been revealed by a major survey published on Tuesday, with one in six saying they had never heard of the disease that has claimed 25 million lives.
Of those who had heard of AIDS, nearly three-quarters did not know its cause and almost 90% did not know how HIV infection could be detected. The results of the survey of 7,000 people, conducted by China's State Family Planning Commission in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were released at the International AIDS conference in Barcelona.
Dr. Deborah Holzman from the CDC and colleagues say theirs is the first major survey of knowledge about AIDS among Chinese people. The researchers said the findings suggested the general public in China lacked a "sense of risk of infection and an awareness of self-protection. Widespread information and education efforts are urgently needed."
Although 91% knew HIV could be transmitted, 52% did not know it could be transmitted through a blood transfusion, 81% were unaware that it could be transmitted by drug users sharing needles, and 85% were not aware it could be passed from an infected woman to her newborn child.
Some 17% of those questioned in 7 different regions had never heard of AIDS. Although 74% of respondents said AIDS was preventable, 77% did not know it could be prevented by using condoms correctly. The survey comes amid an increased international focus on China, where AIDS cases are likely to soar there in coming years.
The United Nations said last month China was on the brink of an HIV/AIDS catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. Up to 1.5 million Chinese were infected with HIV by the end of last year and the figure could grow to 10 million by 2010 without effective countermeasures, UNAIDS warned.
"Clearly with such a huge population—most of it lacking even basic knowledge of AIDS—China must become a major priority in the global effort to fight HIV," Dr. Eugene McCray, director of the CDC's global AIDS programmes, told a news conference in Barcelona.
"When the vast majority of the population does not know how AIDS can be prevented or that women can pass HIV on to their children, aggressive HIV prevention is clearly required." He said the question for China was how quickly and aggressively it would respond to prevent the epidemic having the tragic impact it had had in sub-Saharan Africa.
On Monday in Barcelona, UN officials and AIDS activists denounced widespread silence in Asia over the AIDS epidemic despite fears Asia could eventually overtake Africa as the continent hardest hit by the disease.
