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China’s Finds (Another) HIV-Positive
Septuagenarian
Wall
Street Journal
August 8, 2011
China
Picture Credit:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A Chinese man approaching 80 years old
was recently diagnosed with HIV, shedding light
on a segment of the Chinese population said to
be overlooked by the country’s AIDS education
efforts.
According to a recent report from
state-run media Xinhua News Agency, the elderly
man, a widow in the city of Wuhan in central
China, had no record of blood transfusions and
likely contracted the virus through unprotected
sex. He was admitted to Wuhan’s Zhongnan
Hospital with a persistent fever and diagnosed
Friday with HIV, Xinhua said.
HIV diagnosis in China’s aging
population is becoming increasingly common. This
year, 14.9% of newly diagnosed HIV cases were
over the age of 50, up from 7.8% a year earlier,
the report said, citing a recent study from the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Surprising as the case of the Wuhan
man may be, he is not the oldest person in China
to contract the virus. A Guangzhou health
official told the China Daily last year that it
was tracking a 94-year-old man who had been
found to be HIV positive.
Xinhua said the senior population is
becoming more sexually active as health
conditions have improved and many have opted for
more promiscuous lifestyles.
China has taken steps in recent
years to improve HIV prevention. But the rise of
HIV in the aging signals a major oversight in
the country’s AIDS education and awareness
programs, which have typically focused on
younger generations, homosexuals, sex workers
and migrant workers from rural regions, Xinhua
said.
Some experts say the rise in the
aging population’s HIV rates can be attributed
to a cheap commercial sex industry that attracts
China’s older population, China Daily said.
Older HIV patients claim they’ve paid for sex
because their wives had either died or lacked
sex drive post-menopause, the newspaper said,
citing the case of one HIV-positive 70 year-old
man who said he though he’d contracted the
disease by having unprotected sex with women at
a “sauna.”
There are an estimated 4 million to
10 million female sex workers in China,
according to the China Daily, citing a paper
from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Around
6% of the male population ranging 20 to 64 pay
for sex from these women, the report said.
China is not the only country with
elderly AIDS and HIV patients. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24%
of people living with HIV in the U.S. are older
than 50. By 2015, half of those in the U.S.
living with HIV will be older than 50.
While the prevalence of older AIDS
patients can be attributed to successful
treatment that has enabled many with the disease
to live longer lives, there is still a large
population of older Americans who contract the
virus annually, according to the Department of
Health & Human Services’ Administration on
Aging. Around 15% of new HIV/AIDS cases occur
among people 50 and older.
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