Chinese authorities ban AIDS conference

An AIDS conference planned to take place in China in August has been banned by government authorities.

The conference aimed to bring together Chinese and foreign experts and activists to discuss the legal rights of people living with AIDS and was due to take place in Guangzhou near Hong Kong in the south of the country.

The organizers, the New York-based Asia Catalyst group say they were informed by the authorities that the combination of AIDS, law and foreigners was too sensitive.

China admits to having 203,527 registered people living with the HIV virus but the United Nations believes the true number is much higher than that and to be around 650,000.

Of that figure, 52,480 have already progressed to full-blown AIDS.

On the agenda for the conference were issues such as discrimination, blood safety and setting up a legal aid center.

No new date has been suggested so far.

Although China has become increasingly open about AIDS in recent years and the government supports campaigns to educate citizens on avoiding infection, there are still sticking points.

AIDS victims infected through reckless commercial blood collection in rural Henan province have been given free drugs but nevertheless the state remains wary of local activists and the influence of foreign groups who might encourage litigation against the state by infected citizens or raise issues of official complicity in the spread of the disease; Henan has informally blocked patients from suing officials over tainted blood.

The conference had been co-organized with the China Orchid AIDS Project, a Beijing-based group, who had invited several experts from South Africa, India, the United States, Canada and Thailand.

In May this year authorities barred a prominent AIDS and environmental activist couple from leaving the country, accusing them of endangering national security and the doctor who helped expose the rural AIDS epidemic in Henan was only allowed to go to Washington to collect a human rights award after an international outcry.