Another Chinese Province Is Hit by HIV

World attention has focused on extraordinarily high rates of HIV in some villages of central Henan province south of Beijing, where poor farmers contracted HIV while selling blood to unlicensed operators. Yet, 250 miles from those Henan hamlets is the beginning of an AIDS outbreak in Shaanxi province.

Farmers in Shaanxi sold blood over the years and the blood-buying companies used unclean methods that spread the disease. They pooled all the donated blood, spun it through a centrifuge to separate out the plasma, then pumped the residue back into the villagers' bodies in the belief that the practice was good for one's health. These practices also allowed villagers to donate blood more often. The outfits preyed on rural villagers -- the people in China most desperate to supplement their paltry incomes and least likely to complain when things go wrong.

China faces "not a generalized epidemic, but a bunch of smaller epidemics," says Joan Kaufman, an expert in reproductive issues affiliated with Radcliffe College, who says half a dozen Chinese provinces are believed to have seen blood-selling operations similar to Henan's. AIDS experts estimate that one million or more Chinese may be infected with HIV, but local Chinese officials don't agree. "Epidemic situations must be announced by the government," said Mr. Han, the director of Shangluo health department. Reports that people have fallen ill through selling blood, he added, "are pure hearsay."

Villagers in rural China are poor and keep their eyes open for opportunities. In 1995, when strangers appeared with job offers in neighboring Shaanxi province, many people from Luoyugou signed up for the long bus ride to Jishan, each paying $12 for the fare. At "Jishan County Blood Station" individuals were told to give blood for a period of days, weeks or even months. "I stayed two months and gave blood more than 50 times," says Mr. Qu, a widower with three children. "We had already paid the bus fare. If we didn't give blood, we had no way of getting home." Mr. Qu so far shows no symptoms, but his wife died in June of AIDS.

Early this year, health officials from Shangluo collected blood samples from villagers who sold blood. They told some of the villagers that they had tested positive for HIV and gave them medicine for cold and headaches. Other villagers said they were told nothing. Mr. Han, the health department director, confirms that HIV cases have been found but will not give out details.

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