Stringent New Rules on AIDS Policy Proposed by China

Mao Qunan, deputy director of the Chinese health ministry's department of general administration, said the ministry is drafting tough regulations on HIV/AIDS. The rules will clarify the legal responsibility of local authorities to treat patients and prevent officials from covering up the spread of the disease.

Mao said a draft of the rules would be submitted to the State Council, or cabinet, for review in the near future. If they are approved, the regulations will signal that the Chinese government is serious about increasing efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, although Beijing leaders have yet to make a public commitment to the kind of action experts say is essential to curbing the spread of HIV.

In some AIDS-affected areas, especially those where outbreaks stem from illegal but officially tolerated blood-buying operations, local governments have long sought to conceal the problem, activists say. Residents of Xiongqiao village in Henan province say hundreds of police and officials attacked people with AIDS and others in a midnight raid in June after some patients complained about their treatment. Mao, who said he learned of the incident only from foreign media reports, acknowledged the difficulties of ensuring that authorities respond appropriately to AIDS.

"We need to make clear the legal responsibility of each level of government for preventing and treating AIDS," Mao said. "We are stressing that it might be a better choice to handle things through law... just making spoken appeals [to local government officials] may not resolve the problems," he remarked.

China's government recently expanded a low-profile trial in rural AIDS-affected areas, giving patients free locally produced antiretrovirals. However, Mao said, the challenges of providing such treatment are proving "more complex" than expected. Nevertheless, the government is continuing the trial.

"We need to expand it as quickly as possible," said Mao, "because the patients' needs are very urgent."

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