China Admits Potential AIDS Epidemic from Unsafe Blood Handling

China admitted this week that unsafe methods of blood collection and transfusion are spreading AIDS and could cause an epidemic in the world's most populous country, according to Xinhua.

The official news agency quoted medical experts who warned that the methods of pooling donors' blood, extracting plasma and replacing blood into donors can cause a rapid spread of the disease. Blood stations established in the 1990s to purchase blood from poor farmers, especially in China's Henan province, have caused widespread HIV infection. Tests on residents of one village in Henan found 65 percent of villagers to be HIV-positive or to have full-blown AIDS.

However, the official news article said the number of confirmed cases was still relatively small. A report from China's HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Center indicated that the country has only about 600,000 HIV/AIDS patients and that drug use is responsible for 71 percent of HIV infections, sexual contact for 7 percent, and the cause of the remainder is unknown. "Eight people out of every 1,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers are confirmed as being victims of unsafe blood collection and supply in China," the report said. But independent doctors who have researched the problem in Henan have estimated there could be as many as one million people who contracted AIDS from selling blood in the country. China recently announced that it had allocated funds to construct safe blood collection supply networks and to close illegal blood stations this year.

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