AIDS challenge to China's gay men
Source: Xinhua |
August 2, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A LEADING international expert on HIV/AIDS has challenged China's gay men to face up to their responsibilities in fighting the spread of the disease.
Dr Ray Yip, director of the China Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the spread of HIV/AIDS in China through homosexual sex was "one of the biggest emerging challenges" to controlling the disease.
Yip said that HIV transmission through "MSM" (men having sex with men) had boomed since 2003.
The Beijing Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced earlier this year that sexual activity between men and men had become the main channel of HIV transmission in the city, exceeding both heterosexual sex and drug use.
Poor awareness of safe sex among gay men contributed to the rise as many gay men had multiple sex partners, and did not always use condoms.
"We need the MSM group to engage their community to take part in the intervention," Yip said. "Will they promote safe sex? Will they be promoting early testing? Will they be supporting people already with HIV? So the key is their involvement in the prevention."
Social pressures forced many HIV carriers to remain hidden, and many were reluctant to admit they were HIV carriers, he said.
They need to show their faces and let their voices be heard, he added.
Homosexuals, sex workers, drug abusers and underground blood donors were all most at risk of infection and the biggest danger to others.
"The prevention of the spread of HIV, regardless of which group, drug users, sex workers or men having sex with men, is the same," Yip said.
"The key thing is that the high risk behavior needs to be reduced. It is those people who don't know they are HIV carriers who are dangerous. We need to find them."
However, he added: "China represents one of the few countries in Asia that really takes AIDS seriously."
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed US$50 million to support HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in China, supporting both governmental and non-governmental programs.
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