Washington Post Report: China Faces 'Titanic' AIDS Crisis

The U.N. Theme Group on HIV/AIDS cited previously reported statistics including an estimate that as many as 1.5 million Chinese last year contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But it added unusually stiff criticism of the Chinese government for its response to the disease and said the nation is "on the verge of a catastrophe that could result in unimaginable human suffering, economic loss and social devastation."

"In the near future, China might count more HIV infections than any other country in the world," said the report, titled "HIV/AIDS: China's Titanic Peril." Ten million Chinese could be infected by the end of the decade, the report said, as the disease spreads into the general population from already hard-hit groups: drug users, sex workers and people who have sold blood to unsanitary dealers.

During the report's unveiling, one Chinese health official challenged the comparison to the Titanic, and, in a break with protocol, angrily asked whether the United Nations intended to stand by and watch China sink like the ship. U.N. officials replied that they picked the Titanic metaphor to emphasize that Chinese leaders could still avoid a disaster.

"If the people on the bridge of that ship had acted according to the information they had, then they could have avoided it," said Kerstin Leitner, a U.N. representative in Beijing. "That tragedy was preventable, and the same applies to the HIV/AIDS situation in China."

The report blamed China's response on a lack of commitment by officials at all levels of government, "dramatically insufficient" funding for AIDS prevention programs and a health care system that has all but collapsed in the Chinese countryside.

It described widespread ignorance of the disease and discrimination against people with HIV or AIDS, sometimes fueled by local laws.

The report also alluded to perhaps the most sensitive obstacle in fighting AIDS in China: the country's authoritarian political system. International experience has shown that free flow of information and the emergence of independent, grass-roots organizations are critical to fighting AIDS, the report said. But China's ruling Communist Party is uncomfortable with both. [….]