HIV is unique for the levels of discrimination (qishi) and consequent suffering (expressed in its many forms in the Chinese language as chiru, shouku, qinhai, and wuming) endured by those carrying the virus. Although there is discrimination against hepatitis and TB carriers, the stigma around these is not as serious as HIV (zai yiqi 2010). […]
Рубрика: Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia
Uneven disease economies
Although the national prevalence rates of HIV in China are lower than rates in many developed countries, such as the USA or Australia, HIV attracts a disproportionate amount of resources and attention in comparison with the amount of people it affects. The sheer numbers of publications and media on the various aspects of the virus […]
Structural inequalities and demographies of HIV infection
In addition to the social problems arising in such a diverse and unequal society, the country’s patterns ofpublic health investment and education, its diagnostic technologies and capabilities, and government-business corruption, among other factors, continue to shape China’s experiences and perceptions of HIV, health, and healthcare more generally. The reform of social medicine that occurred when […]
Detecting and calculating HIV
Since the early 2000s, HIV has also become a major concern in Xinjiang and some areas of Sichuan province among the injection drug using (IDU) population. Mother-to-child transmission has also been detected nationwide, but not in large numbers. HIV has also begun to be reported among particular populations in urban China. For example, considerable HIV-related […]
Governing HIV
Political transition has also played a key role in the management and reporting of HIV in China. In 2002, a major change in the Chinese political landscape facilitated renewed commitments to health among high level party leaders. An important leadership transition occurred when the stewardship of the country shifted from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. […]
Organising around HIV
Although the government response to HIV was slow, on the ground there was a flurry of activity. In cities large and small, organisations were formed to address the spread of HIV in the country and to deal with the inadequate and frequently discriminatory treatment of the HIVpositive. Although local government acceptance of civil society organisations […]
Reporting HIV
In 2001 major changes occurred in responses to HIV and its reporting in both the English — and Chinese-language media. There were media reports in the late 1990s on HIV in south, central and northern China, and also on the blood trade, but without any connection to HIV. The relationship of the blood trade to […]
Transmitting HIV
Internationally, HIV is understood to spread in the following groups: recipients of blood products, truck drivers, injecting drug users, men who have sex with men (MSM), and commercial sex workers and their clients (UNAIDS 2011). Such categories have been developed through statistical reliability. That is, they become significant when large numbers are detected, and then […]
A timeline of HIV in China: From drug to blood to sex trades
Over the last three decades, very different accounts of China’s HIV prevalence have been published and spread by stakeholders in China and internationally. For example, the Chinese government perspective on the prevalence and spread of HIV in China has differed from reports issued by international organisations like the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS […]
Social geographies of power and disease
China is a large, complex, and socially, economically and geographically diverse country of approximately 1.3 billion people. With a Gini coefficient (a measure of social inequality) that lies between 45 and 60, China is home to some of the richest and poorest people in the world (Cai 2012; Hodgson 2012; Yao and Wang 2013). (By […]