中国高校已成为艾滋病高发区
As the HIV/AIDS epidemic begins to hit more young Chinese, the nation's health and education authorities are installing vendor machines selling home HIV test kits on university campuses to help raise awareness and fight the disease. To date, 10 Chinese universities in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Heilongjiang provinces, Beijing, and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region have joined the initiative many call "progressive" in a country where sex largely remains a taboo subject and systematic sex education is still lacking. "We cannot wait to take action, but it's hard to do so, especially on university campuses. Otherwise we put the young students' health at risk," said Shen Jie, deputy director of the Chinese Association of STD and AIDS Prevention and Control, which led the initiative. "More universities are talking with us to install such machines on campus as an alternative option for students seeking HIV testing, which should be normalized anyhow," she added. Many students are reluctant to visit the HIV testing clinics run by the health authorities, even though a visit is free, she said. Privacy and fear of discrimination largely keep them away. In recent years, China has seen a rapidly increasing HIV epidemic, particularly among young students aged 15 to 24, mostly via uNPRotected gay sex, said Wu Zunyou, head of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention. Nationwide, during the first nine months of last year, more than 2,300 students in this age range were detected with HIV, roughly four times greater than in 2010. |