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According to Yu Jingjin, director of
the bureau of disease control and prevention under the National Health and
Family Planning Commission, 1,700 Chinese students contracted the HIV virus in
2012. This was an increase of 24.5 percent from the previous year.
Approximately 64.8 percent of the students contracted the virus through sex
with people of the same gender, and 87 percent of the cases were sexually
transmitted. Yu stated that, at present, more than 7,000 students in China have
HIV/AIDS.
Wang Ning, deputy director of the
National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, stated that most of the
1,700 new HIV cases were male students. Wang attributed some of the increase in
new cases to the fact that more people are taking HIV tests. The number of tests
taken nationwide rose from more than 60 million in 2010 to 100 million in 2012,
with a corresponding increase in the number of cases. He added that more gay
people are taking HIV tests and cited a more open attitude toward sex and
unsafe sex as another reason for the increase in infection.
Statistics from the former health
ministry indicate that 84.9 percent of the new HIV cases reported from January
to October 2012 were contracted through sex, and 21 percent of the cases were
among men who had sex with men. The statistics also report 17,740 deaths
between January and October 2012 from HIV/AIDS, an 8.6-percent increase over
2011.
Ye Dawei, deputy secretary-general
of the China Red Ribbon Foundation, a nongovernment organization working to
prevent HIV and support persons affected by HIV, said that lack of knowledge
about safe sex increased young peoples’ contracting the disease. He commented
that schools and parents are not educating youth about safe sex and in today’s
society, there is more temptation for youth through the Internet. The
foundation conducts a program to educate college students and migrant workers
about HIV/AIDS prevention and has reached out to more than 5,000 students in
200 universities in China.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
