Last week, the People's Daily visited one of the
villages in central China's Henan Province that has been worst-hit
by HIV/AIDS,
and reported on Tuesday that its death rate has now almost returned
to normal.
Five years ago, some families in the village of Wenlou, Shangcai
County had to hold several funerals on a single day. According to
the provincial health bureau, 1,427 villagers sold their blood
before 1995, 431 of whom have been confirmed HIV positive.
Fifty-two of them have died and 337 others in 303 households, 33
percent of the village's total, have AIDS.
In 2003, Shangcai was listed among the country's first 51
demonstration zones for AIDS prevention and treatment. That year
the provincial government sent working teams to 38 priority
villages, including Wenlou, assigning each village?seven
staff.
At the 2005 International Symposium on Official Development
Assistance for Population and Development in Suzhou on October 27,
Vice Minister of Health Wang Longde said the 830 million yuan
(US$103 million) spent combating AIDS in 2004 would be topped both
this year and next.
On October 24, the People's Daily interviewed one
villager with AIDS as she worked in her field. Apparently in good
health, she said she grew garlic, ginger, cabbage and other
vegetables not only for her own family, but also to sell at the
county market every day.
Liu Yuemei, secretary of the village Communist Party of China
committee, said the woman was named Zhang and aged 53. In March
2004 she began to show symptoms of AIDS and, after a fever, was on
the verge of death and could neither eat nor drink. Her family even
prepared a tomb site for her.
After being prescribed antiretroviral drugs, Zhang recovered and
can now work in her field three to four hours a day.
Wang Peiren, head of the working team assigned by the provincial
health bureau, told the People's Daily that although the
village has a high number of people with HIV/AIDS, its death rate
is now close to normal.
There is an 800-square-meter health center in Wenlou, which has
40 beds and is equipped with ultrasound and X-ray machines, an
electrocardiograph and other instruments. Presently, all patients
have access to free treatment for opportunistic infections and
antiretroviral drugs. More than 100 drugs are available to fight
opportunistic infections.
There are now over 200 supervisors in Shangcai supporting
patients in their drug treatment, and Wenlou alone has more than
ten. The supervisors are patients themselves who have responded
well to treatment, and each helps 20 others and visits them twice a
day, bringing medicines and making sure they take them.
The number of antiretroviral doses taken in the county has risen
from 100 in the year 2002 to 3,422. Most people taking them have
improved and some have recovered well enough to do light manual
work, while the death rate has fallen drastically. More than 300
patients who did not adapt to antiretroviral drugs have been given
traditional Chinese medicine.
Progress has also been made in preventing HIV infection,
especially in mother-to-baby transmission.
The People's Daily also spoke to a villager named
Caixia and met her two-year old son. Both Caixia and her husband
have AIDS, and when she got pregnant in the spring of 2002, she was
afraid her baby might become infected too.
However, she wanted to have a child and had learned of the
mother-to-baby AIDS prevention program at the county's People's
Hospital, so she took part in the drug treatment and, eighteen
months after being born, her son tested negative.
Presently, the provincial government has a preferential policy
for HIV positive pregnant women who choose to undergo prevention
treatment: their delivery costs are reduced or remitted and their
babies get free milk in the first 18 months after birth.
All 94 of the pregnant women who have been confirmed positive at
the hospital, out of the 13,158 tested since October 2001, have
received prevention treatment. Of the 28 babies born to them now
over eighteen months old, 27 have tested negative.
(China.org.cn by Wind Gu, November 4, 2005)