Female injection drug users (IDUs) are the key population to
preventing the spread of HIV from high-risk populations to the
general population in China. Experts discussed the matter at length
on Thursday at a symposium on drug abuse and AIDS.
"Female IDUs may be at the highest risk of acquiring HIV and the
highest risk of exposing others to HIV in China," said Bessie Lee,
deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control's (CDC's)
Global AIDS Program in China.
CDC reports that in 2002 the three main HIV transmission routes
in China were injection drug use (68 percent), blood and plasma
collection (9.2 percent) and sexual transmission (7.2 percent).
"Female drug users account for 16.7 percent of more than one
million reported drug users in China. In some regions, this
percentage can even reach 40," said Cheng Feng, China director of
Family Health International of the US. "Many of them get money to
buy drugs by offering sexual service. It makes this population a
very probable bridge between high-risk populations such as drug
users to the general population," said Cheng.
According to the China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project,
some 51 percent of female IDU sex workers do not normally use
condoms.
CDC's Lee said, "HIV transmission routes for female sex workers
who use drugs are from them to their male clients, then to low-risk
females and then to low-risk males. This is the secondary HIV
transmission, which means HIV is transmitted from high-risk
populations to the general population. Now China is in the key
phase of preventing secondary HIV transmission from spreading. How
to realize this goal? The first is to give priority attention to
HIV prevention for female IDUs."
She added that the next step was to decrease risk transmission
through such means as promoting the use of condoms, and finally to
offer anti-virus treatment to IDUs, especially females.
"The Chinese government has begun to take such measures as
promoting condom use and providing hypodermic needles in regions
with high incidence of AIDS and drug use, such as southwest Yunnan
Province. This shows that the government has begun to adopt a
positive and practical attitude in the prevention and treatment of
AIDS and drug use," said Liu Zhimin, deputy director of the
National Institute of Drug Dependence of Beijing University.
China's first HIV case was identified in 1985. The most recent
assessment report on AIDS prevention and control released by
Ministry of Health indicates that HIV is an epidemic affecting all
the mainland's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
There are now nearly 900,000 HIV carriers reported in China, 80,000
of whom suffer full-blown AIDS. Some experts warn that over 10
million Chinese will be HIV-positive by 2010 unless effective
measures are implemented.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn, June 25, 2004)