China's Aids crisis lingers over country's new leaders
When Wang Pinghe was 12 years old, his parents took him to hospital for an operation to his chest. He came out infected with HIV.
Wang Pinghe Photo: Katharina Hesse
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
9:11AM GMT 29 Nov 2012
At first, he did not know he was sick. He went back to school but complained of "month-long" fevers and some mornings he found he could not even open his eyes. After leaving school, he worked in factories and then dug irrigation systems in western China.
Now aged 28, Mr Wang was diagnosed with full-blown Aids in May. "My parents cried for four days. I am their only son," he said, sitting inside a restaurant in Beijing but huddled in an overcoat with a fake-fur collar.
Nor is he the only victim. Between 50,000 and 300,000 others were also mistakenly infected with HIV in Mr Wang's home province of Henan in the 1990s, in one of the biggest medical scandals of all time.
There are no official figures because the Chinese government has never admitted or apologised for what happened. And the man who led the cover-up in Henan has just been anointed as China's new prime minister: Li Keqiang.
Now that Mr Li has reached the apex of power, he appears keen to fix the worst stain on his political career.
One of his first acts was to intervene on behalf of a 25-year-old HIV positive lung cancer patient who had been denied an operation in Tianjin.
Earlier this week Mr Li shook hands with Aids victims on Chinese television and promised to let NGOs play a more active role in battling the disease. China saw a 13 per cent rise in infections last year.
Last Friday, following Mr Li's orders, the health ministry banned hospitals from turning away infected patients.
It was a step to calm the public anger in Henan, where 300 Aids victims tore down the gates of the local government in September to protest their lack of treatment.
Mr Wang said his local hospital would not treat him for lesions he has developed on his liver because of his disease. Two of the three retroviral drugs he takes each morning are no longer used in the West because they can cause liver damage.
At the same time, Mr Wang said, the shadow of the virus still hangs over the health system. Even today, he said, "Chinese hospitals cannot guarantee that their blood is safe". The World Health Organisation declined to comment.
The Aids epidemic broke out in Henan after local officials encouraged farmers to donate blood and failed to properly screen the process.
"Extend your arm. Expose a vein. Make a fist. And it's 50 yuan (£5)" was a popular slogan, as mobile collection units hustled for blood. Needles were reused and, most chillingly, donors were reinjected with pooled blood once the plasma had been removed.
By 1996, when Mr Wang was infected, local officials were already aware that the province's blood banks were badly contaminated. But instead of raising the alert, they covered up the news and muzzled journalists and doctors.
"When I first found out, my first thought was to take revenge, to suicide bomb the hospital. But then I thought there are other innocent patients there so I changed my mind," said Mr Wang.
Even today, almost 15 years since the scandal came to light, mobs of thugs patrol the worst-affected villages in Henan, closing them off to the outside world.
Since he was diagnosed, Mr Wang has lived alone in his village in Runan county. Around 100 others nearby were also infected by blood transfusions at Runan hospital.
No officials have ever been punished, but the doctor who performed Mr Wang's surgery has been transferred elsewhere, after a number of his patients became HIV positive.
"I take care of myself basically," he said. "I go to the hospital in the morning for my medication on a scooter. It is about three miles away. My parents have gone to the south. They felt ashamed to stay in the village.
"I am alone all the time. I watch television day and night, I watch NBA basketball during the day. Everyone in the village knows I am a carrier and no one comes to see me anymore."
But he said many other victims have lost hope. "Probably about a third of them cannot get any compensation from the court and are taking their revenge by deliberately infecting others," he said. "I know at least ten people who are doing that."
"They cannot see a future and the government is not making them confident that they will live for a long time. They want to make the best of their remaining time and have fun. They should have justice and they should have jobs, but they are discriminated against," he added.
Because of the cover-up, many victims unwittingly infected their wives, or others. "I heard that in the Runan Normal College a lot of female students were infected who were mistresses of local people," he said.
"One of the teachers also was infected, after sleeping with a student. The girls were quietly persuaded to leave class and many of them have gone to the south to work, some of them becoming prostitutes," he said.
The court in Runan awarded Mr Wang £6,000 in compensation but he is now fighting with the court system to compel his hospital to treat him. He came to Beijing to protest outside the Supreme Court. But upon trying to unfurl a red banner calling for justice, he was quickly ushered away by the guards outside.
Additional reporting by Valentina Luo
