“With contraception and abortions justified, legalized and promoted by thegovernment, people are relieved from the concerns of premarital pregnancy,” he said.
A 2009 study by Peking University on the reproductive health of Chinese youngstersalso found that 22 percent of the country’s 164 million single people aged 15 to 24 hadsex before marriage and more than 20 percent had an unplanned pregnancy, of which 91percent resulted in abortions.
As China’s sex education has failed to keep up with sexual precocity, the age of womennow having abortions has fallen dramatically.
According to a report in September in the People’s Daily, it is now common to findgirls as young as 11 undergoing the procedure.
Chen Yiyun, an expert with the China Sexology Association, reportedly visited aprivate clinic in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, where theyoungest patient was only 9 years old.
Green Apple, the Beijing-based hotline that offers advice to students, receives morethan 100 calls a week about pregnancy at the beginning of each school semester. Staffrevealed that one caller was a 14-year-old girl who had to have her womb removed due tothe damage caused by three abortions.
Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that more than 9 million abortions wereperformed in China in 2008, compared to 7.6 million in 2007.
Of all the patients, roughly half were women without children, said Wu Shangchun atthe National Research Institute for Family Planning.
“As these women may have children in the future, they should be very careful aboutthe severe harm abortions cause to reproductive health,” she said. “By taking the Pill, theyare protected from unplanned pregnancy and abortions.”
October 16, 2010
Aids and the elderly
Health officials refocus safe sex awareness strategies to curb worrying rise in HIV among aging Chinese men.
Cao Li in Guangzhou and Shan Juan in Beijing report.
There is a worrying increase in the number of elderly people diagnosed with HIV andAIDS, with the highest infection rate among prostitutes and their clients, seniorhealth officials have revealed.
Although no official figures are available, Hao Yang, deputy director of the Ministry ofHealth’s disease prevention and control bureau, said cases involving men and women aged60 and over have risen by several hundred since 2007, particularly in southern China.
In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou alone, infections among people aged 50 orolder are up to more than 100 a year, officials said.
The revelation highlights a possible oversight in AIDS prevention policies, which formany years have focused on younger age groups and migrant workers, experts said.
Of the 320,000 HIV-infected people in the country, 70 percent are 20 to 49 yearsold, the health ministry said in October 2009. However, Hao told China Daily: “Oldpeople have not been a priority in HIV and AIDS prevention and control campaigns, butthey should be paid more attention.”
Given the country’s limited capacity for epidemic monitoring and reporting, the risein infections among elderly men could even be much worse than doctors think, he said.
Due to constantly improving conditions, the Chinese are living healthier and longer,which Hao explained means more seniors, particularly men, are staying sexually activelonger.
“Some of them turn to prostitutes but they face a high risk of HIV/AIDS. A greatnumber do not use condoms,” he said.
Outside an AIDS support clinic in Guangzhou, 70-year-old Zhong Ping - not hisreal name - was seated with dozens of others waiting to see a doctor.
He was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2009 and told China Daily he thinks he wasinfected after sleeping with women at a “sauna” in 1999. “I didn’t use any protection,” hesaid.
Alongside him in the queue at Guangzhou No 8 People’s Hospital, the only hospitalin Guangdong with a special AIDS unit, were parents with babies and small children, aprisoner in shackles escorted by a police officer, a young pregnant woman, and a couple intheir 70s.
Sex has overtaken intravenous drug abuse as the most common method of HIVtransmission in China. Of the 48,000 new cases reported in 2009, about 70 percent wereinfected through heterosexual or homosexual sex, according to China National Radio.
Cai Weiping, director of the infectious disease department at No 8 People’s Hospital,warned that the deadly virus is spreading fast among the country’s elderly population.
“I am seeing more elderly patients year by year,” he said, adding that seven of the 39people hospitalized with HIV at his unit in 2009 were aged 58 or above, with the oldestbeing 73.
“The oldest patient we have tracked is a 94-year-old man. Study of his developmenthas found he was most likely infected by sex,” said Xu Huifang, director of HIV and AIDSControl and Prevention under the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control.
The situation in the southern metropolis is being echoed in most other regions of thecountry, said Hao at the Ministry of Health. However, both Hao and Xu declined to revealthe exact size of the elderly HIV positive population.
Some experts have put the nationwide rise in cases down to the improved bloodscreening programs introduced since 2006, when hospitals began to give all patients bloodtests before surgical procedures, such as cancer and heart operations.
“As older people are more prone to major diseases than youths, they are more likelyto receive a HIV test, meaning they have a higher chance of testing positive,” said WangNing, deputy director of the National Center for AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease(STD) Control and Prevention.
The fact that the majority of China’s 740,000 HIV and AIDS patients are aged 20 to49 shows they are “still the biggest hit groups, rather than the elderly”, he said.
However, other experts disagree and instead blame the rise in infection among olderpeople on abundant and cheap commercial sex, as well as an increasingly active gaycommunity.