China: mudança na assistência à aids e ao portador do HIV.

Depois de negar a existência da aids no país, permitir transfusões sem controles e de perseguir ativistas hemofílicos e pesquisadores da área, o governo chinês assumiu a responsabilidade pelo diagnóstico e tratamento da aids. Em seis anos houve aumento de verbas e política própria de prevenção e tratamento. A distribuição geográfica é bem diferenciada como mostrado na figura. Abaixo, extrato do texto do The New England Journal of Medicine que pode ser acessado na íntegra clicando o título desse post. A prevalência da aids/HIV no Brasil é de aproximadamente 0,7%, ou seja quase 15 vezes o identificado na China.

Although China's first AIDS cases were discovered in 1989, the government did not publicly acknowledge the existence of a major epidemic until 2001. Two years later, as international attention mounted after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the government abruptly changed course, launching aggressive measures against AIDS. An interagency committee was created to coordinate a government-wide response, and a national AIDS treatment program was established. The national budget for HIV–AIDS grew from approximately $12.5 million in 2002 to about $100 million in 2005 and about $185 million in 2006.1 In January 2006, the Chinese Cabinet issued regulations for HIV–AIDS prevention and control, outlining the responsibilities of the central and local governments and stipulating the rights and responsibilities of infected persons. The government estimates that 650,000 Chinese people are infected with HIV and hopes to limit the total to 1.5 million by 2010. The current estimate represents an HIV prevalence of approximately 0.05%.