Survey Finds AIDS Awareness Still Low in China

In big cities and small towns in China, the public knows shockingly little about the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in their country, a recent survey has shown. Conducted by European Future Group and Horizon Research among 6,835 adults, the survey found that less than 30 percent of the people know how to protect themselves from AIDS. The cities surveyed were Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu, as well as some small towns in the provinces of central China's Hubei and east China's Jiangsu. The latest statistics from the Ministry of Health say that by June 2002, about 850,000 people in China had been infected with HIV. The figure is expected to increase by 300,000 by 2006.

Randomly sampling adults ranging from the illiterate to postgraduates, the survey shows that although more than 93 percent and 82 percent of big city and small town residents respectively have heard of AIDS, they are not clear on how it is transmitted or how to protect themselves. Further analysis shows that residents in big cities are more active than those in small towns in using condoms.

When asked if condoms could protect people from AIDS infection, only 31.5 percent of city residents and 23.5 percent of town residents answered "yes." The research showed that people regard contraception as the most important function of condoms, while only 3 percent of the respondents use condoms to protect themselves from STDs. Although some people are aware that AIDS exists in China, they still pay little attention to the use of condoms as protection against HIV.

Of big city and small town residents, 41 percent and 31 percent respectively think AIDS patients should be treated equally. Furthermore, 68 percent of big city residents and 63 percent of small town residents said they would take care of relatives who had contracted AIDS. Respondents supposed that people's attitudes towards relatives who had contracted AIDS would depend on the way they got infected. Relatives would care for a patient who was ill due to a blood transfusion. But if a family member got the disease from illegal sexual activity, the relatives would feel angry and insulted.

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