Guest Author - Caroline Baker

December 1st is World AIDS Day. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a disease that knows no boundaries, cultural, regional, socioeconomic, or otherwise. Along with the rest of the world, many Chinese have suffered from AIDS since it was first identified. The first case in China was identified in 1985.

However, like many other diseases, dealing with the epidemic within the Chinese community has proven difficult. To understand this, one must understand the culture in which we exist. Face and strength is everything. Just like dealing with breast cancer, some Chinese believe that diseases are punishments for wrongs ancestors have done and one must simple endure to win back the honor for their forefathers. Others strongly believe that admitting to being sick is admitting to being weak and "airing out dirty laundry". One could be ostracized from their community for having any form of deformity, this would be no better.

Couple that with the fact that traditional Chinese culture is very private about anything things of sexual nature and you have a formula for danger. Secrecy, fear, and lack of identification have crippled countries in Africa.

These issues are compounded when you look into China itself and how their government has dealt with this disease. For the longest time, the government denied the existence of AIDS within the country. It is a “Western” disease and therefore clearly not something that could affect them. Some researchers as late as 2004 were arrested for revealing statistics on infection rates. Whole towns were infected during the 1980’s because of a lack of understanding around blood transfusions. And some reports claim nearly a million orphans in China today have AIDS.

If gone unaddressed, China could have close to 10-20 million infected with AIDS by 2010 according to UN analyst.

But thanks to growing international pressures, some of these trends are turning around. When China made a bid for the 2008 Olympics, some organizations tried to use this opportunity to highlight some of the human rights issues that still surround this country, none the least of which involve the treatment of those diseased or ill such as AIDS patients. The SARS incident and lack of sharing information around the disease until it became widespread only highlighted how critical sharing health information is.

While slow on the uptake, China has a lot to offer in terms of the fight against AIDS. Chinese Medicine, in general, has been looked at during recent years as means to treat many different diseases, including AIDS. Many believe that the key to our future healthcare state is finding means to combine the fast-acting Western Medicine with the long-term corrective benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Just in March 2005, China began a Clinical Trials on an AIDS vaccine – one of only 35 trials being conducted worldwide.

Only the future will tell us what will happen. But I hope one day we could eliminate AIDS as a threat to the world and finally find a cure to this deadly disease.