China: New law punishes non HIV disclosure as "deliberate spread of AIDS" (update)

Update: December 3rd

Xinhuanet.com reports that a new law has been passed in Gansu province in north-western China mandating disclosure within a month of diagnosis. The short article makes it clear that non-disclosure will result a prosecution for "deliberate" HIV transmission, although the penalties are not clear.

A regulation adopted by the provincial health department requires HIV carriers and AIDS patients to inform their sexual partners within a month after they get their HIV test results, said Wang Xiaoming, vice director of the department on Wednesday. It also stipulates that HIV carriers and AIDS patients have a responsibility to persuade their sexual partners into receiving counselling and test. Violation of the regulation would be seen as deliberate spread of AIDS and the violators would be punished according to law, Wang said.

Original post: November 13th

Policymakers in Gansu province in north-western China are proposing to pass a law that makes disclosure of HIV-positive status mandatory within four weeks of diagnosis; if not they "face a lawsuit."

China Daily reports that the measures are "widely considered well-intentioned but unrealistic."

The regulation, now still a draft, issued by the Gansu health department on Monday, stipulates that upon getting the HIV confirmation from the clinics, the sufferer must tell his or her partners within a month about the infection, or face a lawsuit.

"The requirement featuring a one-month time limit is not human-oriented as sufferers who first learn of their HIV status need time to accept the harsh reality, let alone informing others of their condition," said He Tiantian, who heads the Women's Network against AIDS - China, a civil society supporting females living with HIV/AIDS.

[...]

"Some give fake documents to protect their privacy," said Professor Jing Jun with Tsinghua University.
Among the 700,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers in China, only 270,000 can be tracked, he said. Regional surveys in the country showed that only one-third of the newly diagnosed HIV sufferers would disclose their infection to their partners.
"The Gansu regulation is good in intention while unrealistic in practice," he noted. Those most likely to tell their partners are those who have been married for a long time. Other sufferers, especially prostitutes, often fail to inform their partners about the infection, he said.

Of note, the report does not mention a law proposed by the Chinese government in 2006, to prosecute "deliberate" HIV transmission. The two, are, of course related: in too many jurisdictions non-disclosure (even in the absence of significant risk, and definitely in the absence of transmission) is currently criminalised.

China: Woman accused of intentionally infecting 30 men (update)

Update: 19th October

News sources from China, including this English-language report from China Daily, say that this story was an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the woman's disguntled ex-boyfriend.

An illicit blog that has swept the Internet and claims to tell the story of an "HIV-infected prostitute" is a sick hoax by an angry ex-boyfriend, police said yesterday. The post, which featured 300 indecent pictures of [the woman], along with 279 cell phone numbers of "former clients", emerged last week and rapidly spread across the nation's Web portals. The post claims the 30-year-old was raped by her stepfather at 15 and had become a waitress at karaoke bars in Beijing, and that the cell numbers were published in revenge against society. However, police in Yan's native Rongcheng county, Hebei province, told China Daily yesterday that the blog had been written by the woman's ex-lover - a married man from Beijing.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, had demanded 5,000 yuan ($730) from [the woman] when they split up but she refused, said a local police officer who declined to be named. The man later told police the woman's brother had attacked him, the officer said. The suspect then returned to the capital and, using the cell numbers he had received at the Rongcheng county police station, began to send indecent pictures of Yan to several officers via SMS. "We have kept those text messages and we will sue him for smearing our reputation," said the officer, whose number was one of those listed on the blog.

Another news report, published in Chinese, says that the woman was tested for HIV by the public health authorities and intial results are that she is, in fact HIV-negative.


Original post: 18th October

A South Korean news website has run a story from their Beijing correspondent alleging that TV stations and other media in China are reporting that a former female sex worker in China is under suspicion of intentionally trying to infect hundreds of male sex partners with HIV and that at least 30 of these men are HIV-positive.

I was alerted to the story by a blog reader, a law professor in South Korea, who points out that since South Korea has created a climate of fear and misinformation around HIV in the country, which has policies that blame foreigners for bringing and 'spreading' HIV in the country, and, have targeted non-Korean national English language teachers in particular, the reporting may well be inaccurate or biased.

The reader has found no other reports about the case, and certainly none have appeared in the English language. Although the report cannot be verified, I do know that in 2006 the Chinese government announced that China was going to start to prosecute individuals "who know they are infected with AIDS or are sick with AIDS and deliberately infect" others.

The report, on nate.com (fuzzy English Google translation version here) claims that the Chinese woman (who is named and pictured in the report) intentionally tried to infect several hundred men in several cities in China by having sex with them and not disclosing her HIV status. She allegedly had the phone numbers of 279 men on her cellphone, which the report suggests is proof enough that she slept with all of them.

It also claims that she admitted on her blog that she slept with men indiscriminately in order to get 'revenge' for having become HIV-positive herself and that her life was so awful she didn't care what happened to her. A relative tells the paper that she was raped by her stepfather when she was 15, and after she ran away from home she became a sex worker in order to survive.

It notes that Chinese society has been shocked by these reports, although it is unclear whether she has been arrested or charged with any crime, since it states that she is currently staying with friends in Beijing.

China: Government announces plan to prosecute 'deliberate' HIV transmission

China to prosecute deliberate AIDS infections

BEIJING, Dec 6 (Reuters) - China will prosecute people who deliberately infect others with HIV, state media said on Wednesday. "Those who know they are infected with AIDS or are sick with AIDS and deliberately infect others will be severely punished according to the law," the Beijing News said, citing an unnamed police officer as telling an AIDS prevention workshop. It provided no details on what kind of sentences would be meted out, nor how police would prove the virus had knowingly been passed on by someone. Police would also deal just as severely with criminal suspects who have AIDS as those who do not, the report said. "For criminal suspects infected with AIDS, they cannot not be dealt with or given free rein just because they are infected," it quoted another unnamed official with the State Council's AIDS prevention office as adding.

Story, from Reuters, on AlertNet.