China facing timebomb: AIDS from blood transfer
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-30 09:25

China, already dealing with a blood selling scandal that left thousands of farmers infected with HIV/ AIDS, is facing another crisis -- this time from people who contracted the disease through blood transfusions.

HIV positive women attend a conference in Beijing organized by a non-governmental group, Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education, to highlight the problem of tainted blood and blood products in China's health system. [AFP]

The victims include many women who received transfusions during cesarean sections.

Not knowing they had the disease until years later, they infected their children through mother-to-infant transmission and also their husbands.

Infections happened not only in the countryside but in government-run hospitals in cities and went on as late as 1998, patients said.

Victims are diverse, including police officers who received transfusions following traffic accidents. They are now increasingly vocal in demanding help.

"We request the government conduct an investigation so that people who got infected from transfusions will know they have the disease and not infect others," said Shen Jieyong, a hair stylist.

Shen's wife unknowingly infected him after she contracted the disease from a blood transfusion while giving birth to their daughter in 1998. His wife died in 2000 and his daughter, now eight, has the disease.

"The hospital my wife gave birth in was a big national-level hospital in (central) Hubei province. We never thought there would be a problem," Shen said.

The government admitted the scandal involving poor farmers getting AIDS from selling blood in government-approved schemes, and has provided them with free medicine.

But it has said little about those who contracted AIDS from the nation's unsafe blood supply.

It did not ban blood sales until 1995 or enforce regulations requiring screening for HIV at the nation's blood-banks until recent years.

Chinese media, while reporting rare successful lawsuits won by victims against hospitals, have not widely reported the problem.

Tears streamed from victims' eyes as they told this week how they paid for a transfusion thinking it would save them, but instead bought a death sentence.

Li Xige, a postal worker, was infected with HIV when she received a cesarean section in 1995 while giving birth to her first child, but found out too late. The child was infected and so was a second child she gave birth to later.

Her older daughter died last year at age nine, a day after being diagnosed.

"My elder daughter was always sickly," Li said, tears welling in her eyes as her younger daughter, aged four, played nearby.

"She was much thinner than most children and suffered from regular diarrhea. We took her to the hospital many times but the doctors would only lecture me about not feeding her better.

"Until my daughter was diagnosed, we didn't know all three of us had AIDS."

Li said she later found several women who got AIDS from transfusions at the same hospital in central Henan province.

China estimates it has 840,000 HIV carriers, a number that is widely believed to be outdated. United Nations officials say it could have 10 million carriers by 2010.

According to official data, 25 percent of Chinese carriers were infected through transfusions and the majority through intravenous drug use and unsafe sex.

Victims and activists, however, believe the figure on transfusions could be much higher as unsafe blood was widely used up until the late 1990s.

"The hospitals bought the blood from blood sellers and these blood sellers were very mobile," said Wan Yanhai, director of the non-governmental group, Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education.

"They travelled from city to city selling blood as a profession. Many doctors preferred to use blood obtained this way to earn a kickback."

In addition to conducting an investigation, victims said the government should allow courts to accept more of their lawsuits and let the media expose the problem and raise public awareness.

"If they don't act fast, we will die and the disease will spread further, causing greater disaster," said Shen.

The health ministry has said previously it does not believe there are many blood transfusion AIDS cases but gave no further explanation.