The future of china

[medicniresh]

If HIV/AIDS prevention is not made a priority in China, the country will be facing HIV epidemics that will be difficult to contain and expensive to deal with. HIV/AIDS in China could endanger national development and security, both personal and social. It is important to keep in mind that in China, the many millions who are vulnerable to HIV today do not belong to small isolated groups or pockets in society. Instead, vulnerable populations interact extensively with the general population and in fact in many instances they are the general population.98
"China has everything to gain if it can stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic, and everything to lose if it fails" - Kofi Annan.99
Mother to child transmission of HIV remains limited in China. However, once the number of women of childbearing age infected with HIV from their partners increases, so will the incidence of transmission to children. Also, HIV/AIDS poses a great threat to gains made in child survival.
The Chinese government also estimates that 260,000 children may be orphaned by 2010 although, again, these numbers are disputed, with AIDS activists and NGO workers in Henan estimating that as many as a million children in that province alone are or will become orphans as a result of the blood collection disaster. Many school age AIDS orphans were forced out of school when they could no longer afford school fees, or because they must work and care for sick parents.100
Some of the major factors that have contributed to the relatively slow response to AIDS in China include not only a lack of openness in confronting the epidemic, but also a lack of commitment and leadership in many levels of government (provincial and local levels), a lack of adequate resources, a crumbling public health system and severe stigma and discrimination against people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.
It is feared that China might soon have more people living with HIV than any other country in the world, if the recently improved prevention programmes are not rapidly brought up to scale.101
"It would be fantastic if China could show the world how to contain the HIV/AIDS epidemic... However, should we fail, the consequences would not only be catastrophic for China – they would be felt all over the world.” - Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund.102
"Unless China acts decisively, it will find itself on an African trajectory, just 15 years behind. In Africa, governments and businesses are looking back at what they should and could have done - in China, there is still time to avert the worst-case scenario." - John Ruggie of Harvard University.103