China Arrests 15 in AIDS Blood Donor Scandal

Thu Apr 14, 2005 08:41 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has arrested 15 people for involvement in illegal blood-selling schemes blamed for widespread HIV/AIDS infections in the 1990s, the China Daily said on Thursday.

The arrests were linked to 106 cases of unsafe blood collection, illegal organization of people to sell plasma and "serious malpractice" in blood market supervision, the newspaper quoted Vice Minister of Health Ma Xiaowei as saying.

It did not say when or where the arrests were made, but in the central province of Henan at least 25,000 people, and perhaps as many as one million, were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the 1990s in a blood-selling scandal initially covered up by the government.

Villagers were paid to give blood that was pooled and the plasma extracted for hospitals. The remainder of the blood was then returned to donors, to avoid anemia, meaning that one infected donor could pass the virus to the others.

Similar schemes led to infections in other provinces.

China, which has raised the public profile of its fight against AIDS, says it has 840,000 HIV/AIDS cases. Experts believe the figure is more likely to be between one million and 1.5 million.

In March, Xinhua news agency reported that the health ministry had closed 147 illegal blood collection agencies and arrested dozens of people since last May to prevent the spread of HIV.

China has been criticized for being slow to recognize its AIDS problem. The United Nations has said the country could have as many as 10 million cases in 2010 if the epidemic is not taken seriously.

Action movie star Jackie Chan on AIDS mission in Vietnam HANOI (AFP) - Action filmstar Jackie Chan began his first mission in Vietnam as a goodwill ambassador of UNICEF and UNAIDS with a visit to community programmes for children and family members of HIV/AIDS patients. Chan, who arrived late Friday, will see the projects based in Quang Ninh province, east of Hanoi, said UNICEF spokesman in Vietnam, Trinh Anh Tuan. "He will observe ante-natal care, check up of women and will also visit some empathy clubs for the care of relatives of HIV patients as well as some households," Tuan told AFP. "The whole day will be closed to the media in order to respect the privacy and confidentiality of the people," he said. He was also scheduled to meet Buddhist monks and nuns who are offering care and support to HIV carriers and AIDS patients in Hanoi on Sunday. While Vietnam has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in Southeast Asia, the infection rate is now on the rise, UNICEF noted. Vietnam's health ministry says that by the end of 2002, there were 160,000 HIV cases. An estimated 283,667 children were either infected, left abandoned or orphaned by relatives with HIV/AIDS. On Friday, Chan said in Phnom Penh that he planned to make a film in Cambodia to raise awareness about landmines and HIV.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Human rights activists reacted angrily to a suggestion by a mufti that people infected with AIDS and avian influenza be cast away on an island to prevent the spread of disease.

India disputes HIV infection claims NEW DELHI (AFP) - India has strongly disputed claims by an international anti-AIDS group that India has outstripped South Africa as the country with the highest tally of people living with HIV-AIDS. "Factually, we have not overtaken. South Africa has 5.3 million infected people and India has 5.1 million. These are the actual figures," S.Y. Quraishi, director general of the National AIDS Control Organisation, told AFP on Wednesday. The executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Richard Feachem, said in Paris on Tuesday that India had overtaken South Africa as the country with the highest number of HIV-AIDS patients. "The official statistics show India in second place and South Africa in first place," Feachem said. But, he added, "The official statistics are wrong. India is in first place... The epidemic (in India) is growing very rapidly. It is out of control. There is nothing happening in India today that is big or serious enough to prevent it." Quraishi said this was not true. "Concerns about the disease are well taken but the facts are that we have not overtaken South Africa," he said. "Moreover, our figures represent only 0.9 percent of our population whereas in South Africa the numbers represent 23 percent of their population. But this has not made us complacent. We would like to assure the global community that we are fully seized of the problem which we consider as grave." The official said efforts to fight the disease were being "enormously scaled up" and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will soon launch a National Council on AIDS which will comprise 30 people, including ministers, officials and experts. "The impression that we are not doing anything is totally wrong. We want to save India from disaster," Quraishi said. In February, India launched its first human clinical trials of a vaccine designed to prevent HIV-AIDS. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which carried the tests on 10 volunteers, said Wednesday that the vaccine should hit the market in about five years. "The Adeno Associated Vector Borne Vaccine (AV) which went into Phase I trials has been completed in 10 volunteers and their safety profile is very good," ICMR director general doctor N.K. Ganguly told the Press Trust of India. "If things go right, the vaccine should be available in the market in five years from now," he added.

Wednesday April 20, 02:30 PM

Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said Tuesday "the official statistics show India in second place and South Africa in first place."

But, Feachem said, "The official statistics are wrong. India is in first place."

"The epidemic (in India) is growing very rapidly. It is out of control. There is nothing happening in India today that is big or serious enough to prevent it."

The UN agency UNAIDS' latest official figures for the national prevalence of HIV/AIDS were published in July 2004, giving the estimated incidence as at the end of 2003.

South Africa had the highest total of any country in the world, with an estimated 5.3 million infected adults and children in a range of 4.5 to 6.2 million.

India's total was put at 5.1 million, but the range estimate was far wider -- 2.5 to 8.5 million -- to reflect the many unknowns about the state of the pandemic there.

"India has to wake up and India has to take this very, very seriously," Feachem said on Tuesday. Without action, "millions and millions and millions of Indians are going to die."

He added, "the epidemic will grow faster, much faster, in (India's) Hindu population than in Moslems," as circumcision is an acknowleged protective factor against the AIDS virus.

The biggest form of transmission in India is from heterosexual intercourse with prostitutes. In addition to widespread ignorance and deep-rooted stigma abut AIDS, the country also has relatively high prices for anti-HIV drugs, said Feachem.

"It is easier to get Indian generic drugs in Africa than it is to get them in India. That is a scandal and has to be changed."

Feachem was speaking at a press conference for the launch of a European "Friends of the Global Fund" to drum up financial contributions for his organisation.

The Global Fund, which began operations just over two years ago, has committed more than three billion doollars to 300 programmes in 127 countries for combatting HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.

In November last year, UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued an update estimated the global numbers of people with AIDS or HIV for the end of 2004.

That document put the total at 39.4 million in a range of 35.9-44.3 million, as compared with 37.8 million, in a range of 34.6-42.3 million, at the end of 2003.

Iran records over 10,000 HIV/AIDS cases TEHRAN (AFP) - Some 10,265 people in Iran are infected with the HIV virus and another 390 have full-blown AIDS, according to health ministry figures reported in the press. According to the statistics, intravenous drug use is still the main cause of infection, narrowly followed by sexual contact. The reports did not say if the number of dead has risen from 1,041 -- figures confirmed by the health ministry in February -- since the first case was reported 18 years ago. Most of the reported infections are men, with 9,751 cases, compared to 514 women. But with testing facilities limited and sufferers often unwilling to come forward, experts estimate that as many as 40,000 people may be HIV positive, which can lead to AIDS.

Tuesday April 12, 07:42 AM

The William J. Clinton Foundation will donate 10 million dollars to provide AIDS-suppressing pediatric drugs to infected children in Asia, the Caribbean and Africa.

The money, which the foundation hopes will increase with donations from other donors, will also fund a new program to help AIDS sufferers in rural Africa, Clinton said.

"One in every six AIDS deaths each year is a child," Clinton said. "Yet children represent less than one of every 30 persons getting treatment in developing countries today. These children need hope."

The foundation expects to extend the anti-retroviral drugs treatment to at least 10,000 children in at least 10 countries, including China, the Dominican Republic, and the African nations of Lesotho, Rwanda and Tanzania this year.

The foundation will work with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and others to boost that figure to more than 60,000 children by the end of 2006.

AIDS-infected children in China are expected to begin receiving treatment in May, the foundation said.

According to the foundation, Cipla, an India-based pharmaceutical company, agreed to reduce the price of anti-retroviral treatment medicines for children by more than 50 percent. The medicines are normally up to five times as expensive as adult AIDS medicines.

Peter McDermott, the chief of HIV/AIDS programs at UNICEF, praised the project as "groundbreaking."

Clinton also announced the launch of a new program to provide AIDS care in rural Africa to people who have been overlooked in many programs to combat AIDS.

"There is a desperate clamor in rural areas for treatment," said Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The program targetting rural sufferers has already been launched in Rwanda and would extend to Mozambique and Tanzania later this year, Clinton said.

"Expanding AIDS treatment is an international priority; and as we pursue it, we must leave no one behind. Access to care for children and people living in rural communities has been severely limited," he said.

The 10-million-dollar allocation expands a program that has already begun aiding 15,000-25,000 AIDS-infected children, nearly half of them in Brazil and Thailand.

The Clinton Foundation said it was counting on contributions from national governments and international donors to expand the program's funding.

"Our efforts to accelerate access and treatment represent small, but crucial steps in meeting a big global responsibility," Clinton said.

By LAURA WIDES, Associated Press Writer

FALLBROOK, Calif. - Alicia Vera rises bleary-eyed before dawn, downs a cup of coffee and heads for nearby fields and churches to help stop the spread of AIDS.

She is among a small group of health educators working against language, cultural and economic barriers to reach an estimated 1.3 million migrant farm laborers living in California.

Previous studies of the state's migrant population have indicated a "fairly high amount of risk behavior but not a lot of HIV," said George Lemp, director of the Universitywide AIDS Research Program at the University of California.

"The concern is whether with that much risk behavior, the HIV epidemic is on the threshold of a rapid increase," he said.

To keep that from happening, the program is working with state agencies, clinics and the Mexican government to test and educate migrants.

On survey days, Vera's team from the Vista Community Clinic in northern San Diego County scribbles medical histories, takes blood samples and answers questions from workers.

Among them is Jose Hernandez, 35, who has lived six years in a makeshift room near the fields where he picks strawberries and avocados.

Researchers said migrants who spend long stretches of time away from their families can be exposed to HIV through sex with other workers and prostitutes.

"A person has needs," Hernandez said. "You are here, very alone."

Many migrants forgo condoms and sometimes share needles to inject vitamins to stave off illness and exhaustion, Lemp said. Hernandez knows condoms are important but admits he doesn't always use them.

The number of migrant workers with HIV in California is difficult to calculate because the population is so mobile. Many are in the country illegally and fear that contact with health workers could lead to deportation.

Still, researchers have spotted some alarming trends, including identifying five cases of HIV among the 781 people in their ongoing study of immigrants.

"Ten years ago, you weren't finding any incidence of HIV among migrants in California, so this is significant," said Maria Hernandez, a researcher with the Universitywide AIDS Research Program.

Pregnant women in labor at a hospital in Tijuana — a stopover point for many migrants — had an HIV rate four times higher than similar groups in this country and Mexico, according to a recent study by the University of California, San Diego.

With no hard data on the number of migrants with HIV, money for prevention has been limited.

Money is not the only problem. Outreach workers face cultural barriers in migrant communities, where issues of sex and the body are not readily discussed.

Armando Lunes Gomez, 17, has been in this country a year and lives with his older brothers. He says they have not discussed the use of condoms with him.

"I know about prevention a little, but we don't really talk about that," he said.

Fernando Sanudo, health promotion director at the Vista clinic, said growers have been supportive of the research. But much of the testing and education takes place outside fields so work isn't interrupted.

Elisa Noble, health and safety director for the California Farm Bureau Federation, said growers are working with lawmakers, clinics and insurance groups to come up with an affordable health coverage system.

"Obviously, there's still a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of things that need to be done so that it's a feasible program," Noble said.

Clinic workers are also worried about public backlash against migrant workers, many of whom are undocumented. Efforts in Arizona to block social services for undocumented immigrants and recent volunteer border patrols have heightened that concern.

But Lemp insists California can't afford to ignore its migrant population.

"We could face a marked increase in HIV transmission, and we will all pay for it later," he said.

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