China AIDS victims fight bad drugs, ineptitude

Wang Shuling's skin is stretched tight over her bones and her body shakes like a leaf, to the point that she cannot walk on her own and her hands are not steady enough to lift a glass of water.

Wang, 50, has AIDS and is one of tens of thousands in China's central Henan province who contracted the HIV virus through botched local blood-selling schemes in the mid-1990s.

The epidemic in Henan, where some believe as many as one million people have been infected, was initially covered up, but in recent years the government has come relatively clean on its AIDS problem and taken steps to help victims, offering them subsidies and free medication.

But poverty and inept leadership keep Wang and many others from getting the kinds of treatment and other support they really need.

"Officials just hand out medicine and consider their work done," said Wan Yanhai, an AIDS activist and director of the Aizhixing Institute of Health Education. "They are not trying to improve the lives of these people."

Early this year, Wang switched from effective, but expensive, drugs she bought herself to the government's free medication. Six months later she stopped taking those pills because they made her hands shake uncontrollably and left her neck painfully stiff.

"I refuse to take the government's medication any more. I know there's better medicine out there, but it costs more than I can afford," Wang said, sitting in her modest house with bare brick walls and dirt floors.

BAD COCKTAILS

Wang's story is not unusual among the thousands living with AIDS in Henan and around the country.

China claims it has 840,000 AIDS victims nationwide, but that figure is less than half estimates from activists and expert groups. The United Nations has said China could have as many as 10 million cases in 2010 if it does not take AIDS seriously.

"Overseas experts say that the cocktail we are currently using to treat AIDS is incomparably bad. While it can help in some cases, the side effects are enormous," said Chinese AIDS activist Hu Jia.

"A lot of people cannot use it, they cannot take the side effects, and sometimes using the cocktail will speed death, as their livers can't handle the stress."

The government's free medication drive was hampered by the limited types of drugs available in China and the detachment of local officials, who might not even know the treatments were not working, Aizhixing's Wan said.