The state-controlled China Daily reported today that health authorities are responding to the growing number of HIV infections among gay men by targeting them, for the first time, with an AIDS prevention campaign. Only in 2001 did China remove being gay from its list of mental disorders.
Sex between men accounted for 12.2 percent of China's estimated 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases, according to a 2007 report from the government, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization. The HIV prevention program has begun efforts to learn more about gay Chinese.
"The program aims to strengthen measures to prevent and control the deadly disease among the homosexual community," the newspaper reported Wang Weizhen, a senior HIV/AIDS prevention official at the Health Ministry, as saying. "By learning more about gay people, we can better protect them against this incurable disease. Studies are underway in several cities to collect information on gay men, such as their. behavioral patterns."
The program will also allocate funding and provide technical support for the community, Wang said without elaborating.
02/21/08
China Launches First Anti-AIDS Drive for Gay Men: State Media
Source: Agence France Presse; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention