Word has it that China may finally be about to
provide second-line treatment to some people with HIV/AIDS.
On a recent trip to China, people with AIDS told AC that
roughly one in five of the people they knew living with HIV were at the point
where they needed second-line treatment. Duan Jun, an activist from Henan province, said
that roughly 40 percent of the people he knew needed second-line. Those numbers
are deeply worrying. Just a year ago, we translated a letter from a group of Chinese AIDS activists demanding second-line treatment immediately.
According to AIDS doctors, it's normal for people with AIDS
to begin to build up resistance to the first line of medications and to need
second-line medicines at some point. The process has been accelerated in China because
of the lack of adequately-trained doctors, lack of affordable medicines to
treat side effects, shortages in drug distribution, and other problems in the
administration of free treatment that interrupt treatment and accelerate widespread
resistance to first-line
In Henan,
where thousands were infected with HIV through a state-run blood collection
program in the 1990s, people are beginning to die. Others are protesting. Henan authorities have
responded by throwing protesters in jail, keeping them under house arrest, or
sending gangs of thugs to beat and intimidate them into silence. The weekend
before World AIDS Day, thugs brutally beat a group of Belgian journalists who
went to Henan
to investigate.
We've heard from a few sources that authorities have said
they may start to roll out second-line treatment to a few thousand people in
2009. Great news if it's true... But the clock then begins ticking again...how long
before Henan
needs third-line treatment?
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