AIDS is rampant

last updated 8 January 2015

Beijing

After years of downplaying the AIDS epidemic in China, health officials there admitted this week that more than 1 million Chinese are HIV-positive. The officials threatened to authorize the manufacture of generic versions of AIDS drugs unless the international drug companies lower their prices. The policy turnaround may have been prompted by U.N. rules that require countries to take serious steps to combat the disease before they can qualify for U.N. funds. But the new openness is not unlimited. Security officials recently arrested Dr. Wan Yanhai, an AIDS activist who revealed that thousands of peasants became infected with HIV in the 1990s while selling their blood at unhygienic government blood centers. The police said Wan had revealed a state secret.