AIDS and HIV is a worldwide epidemic. Last year there were 70,000 new cases recorded on mainland China and although most of these new cases were intravenous drug users, sex workers and their clients, the virus has begun to spread among the general population. China’s representative to The World Health Organization, Dr. Henk Bekedam stated, “China’s HIV infections have been linked to high-risk behavior. But now, sex work is moving it toward the general population,” making unprotected sex the newest means for the virus’ spread throughout China.

China’s Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS agency jointly released new statistics stating a reduction in the number of HIV/AIDS cases citing previously erroneous data gathering, but warned that there was “no room for complacency.”

These new figures report that at the end of 2005, six hundred and fifty thousand people were living with AIDS/HIV on China’s mainland, a figure that two years earlier had been reported at 840,000. The sharp decrease in these figures, the agencies agree, was mainly due to an overestimation in 2003 of commercial and plasma donors affected by the virus. Vice Health Minister Wang Longde clarified that, “The lower figures do not mean the epidemic situation in China has improved.” Dr. Bekedam concurred stating that with roughly 200 new infections every day the situation in China is “more serious than we thought” as he called for greater HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in China, additional free testing and treatment for HIV-positive people.

Joel Rehnstrom, UNAIDS China country coordinator, explained that the previous data was overestimated because most of the 2003 data had come from a small number of areas where there was a preexisting high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. He said that now, with better data collection methods and more in-depth knowledge about the most at-risk populations, this new estimate was much more accurate.