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Day Highlights Rising HIV in Women

Posted on: Sunday, 10 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

"Let us empower women and fight against HIV/AIDS." This is the call going out from the Chinese Government today, World Population Day.

And given the alarming shift in the ratio of male to female infections in the last decade, the government is hoping to use the day to highlight the disturbing trend.

Annual reports on the number of HIV/AIDS infected patients in China show that the male to female ratio has altered dramatically from 5:1 in the 1990s to the current 2:1. In some areas, the ratio has reached 1:1.

"The number of women infected with HIV/AIDS is climbing," said Wei Jian'an, standing deputy director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Centre for AIDS Prevention and Treatment.

In China, most women have been infected in two main ways through illegal blood sales and sexual transmission.

"However, most of the recent infections in women have been sexually transmitted. Some of them belong to the high-risk group of prostitutes, while others are just ordinary housewives or career women, infected by their husbands," said Wei.

Currently, most of those females infected are of child-bearing age. If the epidemic among this group does not receive timely prevention and control, more babies will be infected, resulting in another new problem, said a document released by the Ministry of Health, National Population and Family Planning Commission and All- China Women's Federation.

In Shenzhen, a southern coastal city playing a leading role in HIV/AIDS prevention and control in China, 10 pregnant women were diagnosed with the virus in the first half of 2005.

"The number is bigger than last year, when 14 HIV/AIDS infected mothers were diagnosed during the whole year here," said Feng Tiejian, deputy director of the AIDS Prevention and Control Department under Shenzhen's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

When a pregnant woman tests positive, the centre will suggest she has an abortion. But if they insist on going ahead with the pregnancy, they will receive treatment to protect the unborn child from being infected, including medication for the mother and delivery by caesarean section.

Up until now, more than 40 infected pregnant women have given birth to healthy babies under the treatment regime in Shenzhen.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission plans to add prevention and control of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases to their family planning and reproductive health services.

"In the anti-AIDS campaign, an open attitude should be adopted by the government and society," said Wei.

Also, gender equality should be stressed. "Poverty and inequality also fuel the acceleration of HIV infections, because women lack the power to negotiate their personal safety," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of United Nations Population Fund.

Hua Jianmin, State Council secretary-general, said China would continue with its family-planning policy implemented in the late 1970s.

Source: China Daily; North American ed.

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