China is in the grip of a worsening HIV-Aids epidemic, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Wednesday, as new official figures showed earlier assessments had overestimated the number of cases.
”Make no mistake, China’s Aids epidemic is growing,” the WHO’s chief representative in China, Hank Bekedam, told a press conference.
”With an estimated 70 000 new infections in 2005, the epidemic here shows no signs of abating.”
Officials from China’s health ministry, which attended the press conference, said there were between 60 000 and 80 000 new HIV-Aids cases last year, citing a new study carried out by the ministry, WHO and UNAids.
That first jointly-conducted study revealed that the number of known cases in China was 650 000, down from a government estimate in 2003 of 840 000, officials from the three groups said.
However the ministry and the two UN organisations said the lower figure was due to an overestimate last time, and not a slowdown in the growth of new infections.
”That [the 650 000 figure] may lead some to believe that the situation has ‘improved’,” Bekedam said.
”That is not so. The new numbers should not mask the fact that HIV infections are on the rise. Once gain, there were an estimated 70 000 new infections last year.
”We fear the number of infections this year will be even higher and this trend could continue in the future.”
About half of the new cases were people infected through unsafe sex and most of the others were injecting drug users, according to the findings of the joint study.
The fact that the number of infections from sex had exceeded those from drug use was of particular alarm because it indicated the epidemic had moved into the general population, the study found.
China’s deputy health minister, Wang Longde, issued a dire warning to the Chinese public.
”Every day, China has 200 newly infected people. We should say the situation is still very serious,” Wang said.
”Aids is very close to each one of us.” – AFP
