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首页 >> 法律项目 >> 权益维护 >> [专题]艾滋病工作者李喜阁被刑事拘留 >> 正文
有关李喜阁的英文报道
(转自AFP，Reuters 2006年7月24日)
Chinese HIV victim detained after asking government for help
Thu Jul 20, 1:26 PM ET
BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese woman who contracted AIDS from a hospital blood transfusion was detained on suspicion of a serious crime after she asked the health ministry for more compensation, an activist said.
Postal worker Li Xige was detained by police in her home county of Ningling in the central province of Henan, said Wan Yanhai, director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, a non-governmental group.
Li, who was infected with HIV while giving birth to her first child in 1995, had appeared at the health ministry in Beijing on Tuesday along with eight other HIV sufferers, including a child, Wan said in a statement.
They had intended peacefully to petition the ministry for better compensation but apparently they were taken in by authorities and driven back to Henan on Wednesday, according to Wan.
On Thursday Li's family was informed that she had been officially detained on suspicion of "assembling crowds to attack state organs," Wan said. Two other participants in the failed attempt to petition the government were also detained, while the rest were under police supervision, he said.
Ningling county police declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP, saying they had not heard about the case.
For the crime of "assembling crowds to attack state organs," ringleaders can be sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, according to the penal code.
Li did not know she was infected with HIV when having her first baby 11 years ago. The child, a girl, died in 2004. A second child has also been infected.
She said she later found several women who got AIDS from transfusions at the same hospital in Henan.
An estimated 650,000 people in China had the HIV virus at the end of 2005, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations agency spearheading the fight against the disease.
China blood test lapses fuel "hidden AIDS epidemic"
By Ben Blanchard
Feb 21, 2006, 23:20
BEIJING (Reuters) - Blood for transfusions in China is still not routinely tested for HIV/AIDS despite a legal requirement to do so, triggering a "hidden epidemic," an AIDS activist said on Tuesday.
The health ministry should offer free HIV tests to all people who have received blood transfusions since 1987 -- about the time that AIDS first appeared in the country -- together with their relatives, said Wan Yanhai, head of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education.
"There's been no official statement about blood transfusions or the blood products-related AIDS epidemic," Wan told reporters after a news briefing in Beijing, where he unveiled a letter to the health ministry calling for action.
Last year, the government said it would severely punish those responsible for serious diseases transmitted by transfusions. The move followed several cases in which people were infected after receiving blood sold by HIV carriers.
Political sensitivity and social stigma still surround AIDS in China, and the government's slowness to acknowledge the epidemic contributed to its spread, especially in the central province of Henan, where in the 1990s millions sold blood to unsanitary clinics.
Despite the scandal surrounding the infection of often poor villagers who sold their blood to supplement meager incomes, donated blood is still not screened carefully enough, Wan said.
"In many places, the blood is not tested," he said, adding that many people were unaware they had even been exposed to the virus and the government was unwilling to investigate, lest they fuel public anger. "It's a hidden epidemic."
The health ministry was not immediately available for comment.
There were about 25,000 deaths from AIDS across China in 2005. Last month, Beijing lowered by around 30 percent the estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS to 650,000, yet warned against complacency, saying that the figure was still rising with many people unaware of the danger.
Of those, around 11 percent are thought to have been infected from blood transfusions, compared to around 40 percent each for cases transmitted sexually and by intravenous drug use.
NO PROGRESS IN COMPLAINTS
Law suits and victims' complaints to hospitals and government departments have so far made little progress, according to several AIDS sufferers and their relatives who attended the conference.
One, who identified himself only by the surname Xiong, said his son had been infected receiving a blood transfusion during a routine dental operation in Beijing in 2002. He only found out a year later when his son fell ill and was diagnosed as being HIV-positive.
"They said it was an individual case and weren't interested," he said of his complaint to the hospital.
Xiong spends more than 1,000 yuan ($124) a month of his own money on drugs for his son, and does not dare tell the school of his son's status, fearing he'll be thrown out.
Li Xige, from Henan province, said she only found out she was infected when her eldest daughter died two years ago.
"Not a single lawyer would take my case," Li told reporters, fighting back tears.
Treatment in different parts of China varies wildly, patients say, and tests that are supposed to be free often come with hidden charges.
"Shanghai seems to deal with it a lot better," said one woman from northeastern China, who did not want to be named. "In other places the sick are simply being marched off to face death."
Activists fear an explosion in the numbers of people infected by bad blood transfusions and want the government to face up to the problem.
"The government has not investigated the situation," Wan said. "They don't want to take the responsibility."
China facing timebomb: AIDS from blood transfer
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-30 09:25
China, already dealing with a blood selling scandal that left thousands of farmers infected with HIV/ AIDS, is facing another crisis -- this time from people who contracted the disease through blood transfusions.
The victims include many women who received transfusions during cesarean sections.
Not knowing they had the disease until years later, they infected their children through mother-to-infant transmission and also their husbands.
Infections happened not only in the countryside but in government-run hospitals in cities and went on as late as 1998, patients said.
Victims are diverse, including police officers who received transfusions following traffic accidents. They are now increasingly vocal in demanding help.
"We request the government conduct an investigation so that people who got infected from transfusions will know they have the disease and not infect others," said Shen Jieyong, a hair stylist.
Shen's wife unknowingly infected him after she contracted the disease from a blood transfusion while giving birth to their daughter in 1998. His wife died in 2000 and his daughter, now eight, has the disease.
"The hospital my wife gave birth in was a big national-level hospital in (central) Hubei province. We never thought there would be a problem," Shen said.
The government admitted the scandal involving poor farmers getting AIDS from selling blood in government-approved schemes, and has provided them with free medicine.
But it has said little about those who contracted AIDS from the nation's unsafe blood supply.
It did not ban blood sales until 1995 or enforce regulations requiring screening for HIV at the nation's blood-banks until recent years.
Chinese media, while reporting rare successful lawsuits won by victims against hospitals, have not widely reported the problem.
Tears streamed from victims' eyes as they told this week how they paid for a transfusion thinking it would save them, but instead bought a death sentence.
Li Xige, a postal worker, was infected with HIV when she received a cesarean section in 1995 while giving birth to her first child, but found out too late. The child was infected and so was a second child she gave birth to later.
Her older daughter died last year at age nine, a day after being diagnosed.
"My elder daughter was always sickly," Li said, tears welling in her eyes as her younger daughter, aged four, played nearby.
"She was much thinner than most children and suffered from regular diarrhea. We took her to the hospital many times but the doctors would only lecture me about not feeding her better.
"Until my daughter was diagnosed, we didn't know all three of us had AIDS."
Li said she later found several women who got AIDS from transfusions at the same hospital in central Henan province.
China estimates it has 840,000 HIV carriers, a number that is widely believed to be outdated. United Nations officials say it could have 10 million carriers by 2010.
According to official data, 25 percent of Chinese carriers were infected through transfusions and the majority through intravenous drug use and unsafe sex.
Victims and activists, however, believe the figure on transfusions could be much higher as unsafe blood was widely used up until the late 1990s.
"The hospitals bought the blood from blood sellers and these blood sellers were very mobile," said Wan Yanhai, director of the non-governmental group, Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education.
"They travelled from city to city selling blood as a profession. Many doctors preferred to use blood obtained this way to earn a kickback."
In addition to conducting an investigation, victims said the government should allow courts to accept more of their lawsuits and let the media expose the problem and raise public awareness.
"If they don't act fast, we will die and the disease will spread further, causing greater disaster," said Shen.
The health ministry has said previously it does not believe there are many blood transfusion AIDS cases but gave no further explanation.
文章提交时间：2006/7/31
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