When first learning of China’s HIV situation, it was blood contamination in rural areas of China and drug abuse in southwest China that were most frequent.  However, this has changed.

Sexual activity has replaced intravenous drug use as the major cause of the spread of AIDS in China, a report from the Ministry of Health said.

Whether it is ravers in Shanghai, or truckers along China’s new national highway, sexual transmission has now become the leading means by which HIV/ AIDS is being spread, and in my opinion this will be a turning point.

The report found the ratio of sexually transmitted infections had risen steadily, with heterosexual and male homosexual transmission climbing to 37.9 percent and 3.3 percent in 2007, respectively, from 10.7 percent and 0.4 percent in 2005, respectively.

With historically the largest clusters bring found in the southwest from opium usage, in Henan/ Anhui from blood contamination, and Guangdong from a mix - the merging of these clusters through sexual activity will make it much more difficult to slow the spread of this disease, and it will surely slow the prevention measures as well (education programs will have to grow in geographic size).

The relatively low rate of condom use was to blame, the report said.

A point, another report just released by the UN AIDS drives home following a survey of 6,000 people

More than 48 per cent of respondents in six of China’s major cities said they believed they could be infected with HIV through mosquito bites, while 83 per cent had never looked up information on HIV/AIDS and 30 per cent did not know how to use a condom, UNAIDS said in a report.

Nearly 65 per cent said they would not be willing to live with someone infected with HIV, 48 per cent said they were unwilling to eat with an HIV-infected person, and 41 per cent were unwilling to work with an HIV-infected person, the report said.

to learn more about HIV/ AIDS in China, here are some links:

UNAIDS China

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Red Cross Society of China:HIV Programme 2008 - 2010 (PDF)