Beijing
The prime minister of China appeared on national television this week holding hands with AIDS patients, making him the first Chinese leader to publicly address the epidemic. At a televised visit to a hospital on World AIDS Day, Wen Jiabao told his countrymen to treat AIDS sufferers with “care and love and helpfulness.” China has long downplayed its AIDS crisis, even after thousands of poor farmers contracted HIV in the early 1990s by selling their blood to clinics that used dirty needles. The U.N. said that without a massive awareness campaign, up to 20 million Chinese could be infected in the next six years.
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