Activist: AIDS discrimination continues in China

She may not hear or see very well anymore, but when Gao Yaojie starts talking about what brings her to the United States, there is determination in her eyes.

Dr. Gao, who will turn 83 this month, was in Washington on the occasion of World AIDS Day to introduce a new edition of her book, “10,000 letters,” exposing the reality of HIV/AIDS in China.

The book’s title refers to the letters the tireless activist has received over the years from poor villagers in rural China who were infected by HIV in the 1990s after giving blood in infamous “blood stations” that mixed donated blood. “Because they are not educated, they don’t have a voice. They can only cry,” she said.

“It is a miracle that this book is published,” said Dr. Gao, who wore a red AIDS ribbon on her black jacket. The book was first released in mainland China in 2004 but government officials pressured the Beijing publisher to remove it from the shelves. The new edition was published in Hong Kong.

Dr. Gao, a former gynecologist, became a pioneer in exposing the AIDS crisis in China after her first encounter with an AIDS patient in 1996. Back then, she devoted her efforts to prevention, visiting the most affected villages in Henan province and earning the nickname, “China’s Mother Teresa.”

Dr. Gao fought to help the poor farmers who got the virus after selling their blood for money. In central Henan province alone, there were more than 200 blood stations. The blood would be collected and then pooled with other donors’ blood of the same type.

After separating the components needed for medical use, the remaining blood would be re-infused into the donors. This unsafe procedure contributed to the spread of HIV and other diseases.

In one village, up to 60 percent of the population was infected.

“The government engaged in a cover-up campaign and chased activists,” Dr. Gao recalled. “The government would use several ways to hide the truth: bribe the infected farmers, bribe the activists, engage in some sort of harassment or resort to imprisonment and re-education through labor.”

According to the U.N. agency that fights the disease (UNAIDS) and the Chinese Ministry of Health, between 560,000 and 920,000 people in China had the HIV virus in 2007, and 97,000 to 122,000 had AIDS. These numbers are thought to substantially underestimate the crisis.

Specialists say the government’s attitude toward the issue has evolved.

“We moved from a state of denial to admitting there is a problem. The SARS epidemic made a big change in that sense,” said Chung To, founder of the Chi Heng Foundation, a Hong Kong-based charity that helps Chinese children who lost their parents because of AIDS.

In 2003, the Chinese government publicly admitted the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) months after the first deaths in the southern province of Guangdong, where the disease is thought to have originated. By then, the disease had spread to dozens of countries.

The government’s attitude toward HIV/AIDS is still uneasy, Dr. Gao said.

“After 2003, [then] Vice Premier Wu Yi met with me. Then she visited villagers affected by the disease, but it had no effect,” Dr. Gao said. “The local governments still try to cover up the causes.”

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