An ordinary country village scene belies its tragic history of AIDS
Print Edition
ON a sunny winter morning, people gather at a market lining the road in front of the Wenlou village committee. Vendors hawk padded jackets, blankets and snacks.
Nearby, a number of elderly villagers watch a local style of opera.
Wenlou in Shangcai County, Henan Province, looks like a typical village in central China. But the tombs that dot the wheat fields are a somber reminder that the past 20 years have been anything but ordinary.
More than two decades have passed since a disastrous blood collection drive led to an AIDS epidemic in Wenlou. The tragedy earned Wenlou the nickname of “China’s AIDS Village.”
More than half the 678 people infected in the blood drive have since died.
Out of more than 3,000 villagers in Wenlou, 311 are infected with HIV. The youngest is 14 and the oldest over 70, said Cheng Xiaoduan, head of the village clinic.
But there are signs of a brighter future. Clusters of two-story buildings have sprung up. They are stylishly decorated with ornate gates — a display of wealth by the young in Wenlou, many of whom spend all their earnings from the city on comfortable new homes.
Outside his new two-story house, with burglar-proof door and marble floors, one villager tells of how he and his wife started going to the neighboring cities of Xinxiang, Zhumadian and Jiaozuo to sell blood plasma so they could earn money to build three houses. He made 45 yuan (US$6.54) per donation at blood stations but cannot remember how many times he did it.
“As long as we were short of money, we went to the blood station,” he said. His tiny plot for growing wheat and corn never brought in enough money.
He and his wife both tested positive for HIV in 1999, when Gui Xi’en, an infectious disease specialist with Zhongnan Hospital at Wuhan University in the neighboring province of Hubei, conducted an epidemiological survey in the village. The wife died four years later.
In the early 1990s, illegal blood donation stations moved into rural Henan and offered to pay for blood. These operations extracted plasma, then sold it to pharmaceutical companies.
For peasants in villages like Wenlou, it was a quick and easy way to make money. But the illegal stations were often negligent in hygiene and sterilization. The result was an AIDS epidemic that only came to light when Dr Gui arrived.
In Shangcai alone, there were 22 AIDS villages home to more than 100 people infected with HIV each. In Henan, there were 38 such villages, according to local health authorities.
Starting in 2000, a growing number of those infected with HIV began developing AIDS and dying in greater numbers.
Dr Cheng Xiaoduan was terrified when she first arrived at the Wenlou village clinic in 2001. “I wore two layers of plastic gloves and two masks. I would not sit on the same chair as the AIDS patients,” Cheng said.
Things started to change in 2003, when the Chinese government began to offer free antiretroviral drugs and medication for AIDS patients in 51 key AIDS prevention and control areas, including Shangcai.
More than 200 million yuan was set aside to help the country’s AIDS villages, build welfare homes for children orphaned due to AIDS, and improve infrastructure.
Former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Wenlou in 2005 and 2007, which helped relieve discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS.
Dr Cheng learned to be comfortable around her HIV-positive patients years ago.
“It’s not just medication, but also psychological support that helps patients survive,” she said.
Although earning just 2,000 yuan a month, Cheng said her efforts are worth it when she sees patients living a normal life.
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