- SHANGHAI (Reuters) - At least
54 hemophiliacs in Shanghai have contracted AIDS via tainted blood, the
China Daily said Tuesday, a day after millions around the globe marked
World Aids Day.
-
- It also comes a day after Premier Wen Jiabao was shown
on television shaking hands with AIDS patients, an unprecedented public
show of support by a Chinese leader.
-
- Tainted blood has been a major scourge in China's countryside,
where villagers sell their blood to supplement meager incomes, but often
end up contracting HIV as a result. HIV is the virus that cases AIDS.
-
- Activists and experts continue to point out local cover-ups
of blood bank scandals plaguing entire villages, as well as newspaper stories
that play down the plight of people.
-
- About 6.5 percent of Shanghai's 886 HIV carriers contracted
the virus through blood transfusions, the nation's premier English daily
cited figures from the city's Center for Disease Prevention and Control
as saying.
-
- The newspaper did not offer any time frame. Government
and health officials declined comment.
-
- "That's a state secret," one health official
said.
-
- The United Nations estimates AIDS will have killed about
three million people this year, a global pandemic set to worsen as it sweeps
across Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.
-
- China has been lambasted for its slow response to a disease
that has since infected more than 800,000 around the country.
-
- Health agencies say China could have 10 million AIDS
victims by 2010 if it fails to take the scourge seriously.
-
- U.S. teenage hemophiliac Ryan White became a national
hero in the 1980s after contracting AIDS via a transfusion. He was banned
from grade school by students' parents but won re-admission after a legal
battle.
-
- Shanghai now provides free medical treatment for infected
hemophiliacs, and has been paying them a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan
($120) since 2002, the China Daily reported. ($1 = 8.277 yuan)
-
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