Boosting rights of HIV victims
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-12-29 09:01

A professor of law and a lawyer for years, at 65, Yang Shaogang is not a man of impulse. But the director of the Centre for HIV/AIDS Law Studies affiliated with the Law School of Shanghai University couldn't hold back his anxiety when talking about Kan Zhiming's case.

A resident of Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, signs a banner to commemorate International AIDS Day on December 1. [newsphoto]

Kan, a haemophiliac in his 30s from Changsha of Central China's Hunan Province, has relied on Lyophilized Human Coagulation Factor (LHCF VIII) to prevent him from bleeding to death, like any other patient with the genetic defect that means the body lacks blood-clotting ability. He certainly did not expect the life-saving medicine made from blood plasma would be contaminated. But he was found to be infected with HIV/AIDS last year.

An estimated 1,000 hemophiliacs in various parts of China were affected by the HIV-tainted medicine produced in the mid 1990s by the Shanghai Biological Products Institute, a State-owned pharmaceutical company, said Yang. All 54 Shanghai victims were compensated with 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) each, plus a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan (US$120) and free medication worth 3-5,000 yuan (US$361-602) a month.

But the Shanghai institute refused to compensate Kan and other haemophiliacs who are not based in Shanghai. Yang, who is also a counsellor for the Shanghai municipal government, has represented Kan and four other haemophiliacs from the Northeast in a lawsuit against the institute for breaking the law in its failure to properly screen blood products for AIDS viruses. He claimed 1 million yuan in compensation for his clients.

They lost the suit. A local court in Shanghai turned them down on the grounds that the Ministry of Health has stated in its document that AIDS-related issues, including medical treatment and monthly subsidies, should be handled by public health authorities of the locales where these victims live.

Yang cited the case at a seminar on human rights of HIV/AIDS and law held in mid December in Shanghai. "That shows we still have much to do to provide legal guarantees of human rights for people living with HIV/AIDS, although it has been written into our Constitution that the State respects and safeguards human rights," Yang said.

He regards the court verdict against Kan and other haemophiliacs as "discriminatory". "Kan and his fellow haemophiliacs got infected from the same source as the 54 Shanghai victims," he said. "Why were they denied the compensation just because they are not Shanghai residents?"

Speaking at the seminar, the first of its kind in China to take the AIDS epidemic into account in the context of human rights, Li Dun, a professor on public policies from Beijing's Tsinghua University, said that few people in China would say they did not respect the human rights of others. "But when it comes to HIV/AIDS, neglect and violation of human rights still occur."

Discussing human rights and legal issues related to HIV/AIDS with scholars on law, public policies, medical science and media were representatives of non-government organizations of AIDS patients, including Kan Zhiming himself, as well as gays and lesbians from different parts of China. For the first time this usually invisible group of people had their voices heard in public.

Participants agreed it was encouraging and very significant that grassroots communities openly shared their problems and are making recommendations.

"The grassroots public health system is not complete, with the medical workers lacking professional training, and some hospitals and doctors even refusing to provide HIV/AIDS patients with medical services," said Ren Guoliang, a 31-year-old AIDS patient from Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, at the seminar.

On behalf of the different groups of HIV/AIDS victims, he put up a series of proposals, calling for legislation to guarantee rational medical services for those who test positive for HIV; respect for the patient's right to know; legal assistance to people living with HIV/AIDS in their law suits; and the setting-up of a special fund to compensate those who get infected with the lethal virus from blood transfusion, and open access to information on the disease.

China has launched what the health authorities call "four free charges and one care" comprehensive project for HIV/AIDS victims.

The project includes offering free medicine for HIV carriers, free and anonymous HIV tests for villagers, free education for the orphans of HIV/AIDS victims, free pre-natal treatment of infected pregnant women, and taking care of elderly people who have lost children to AIDS.

Elimination of discrimination

On top of all the proposals is a request to eliminate all forms of discrimination against sufferers, as shown in the case of Kan vs the Shanghai institute.

The denial of those haemophiliacs' claim for compensation just because they are not registered permanent residents of Shanghai is "a sheer violation of people's rights to equality," said Li Dun.

Li said people's intentional or unintentional discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS stems from the fact that "AIDS has touched upon much more profound issues of culture, economy and ideology. This infectious disease has been long ideologized and stigmatized in China."

Yang Shaogang said that when the disease was first diagnosed in China in 1985, in a Portuguese tourist who died of AIDS here, it was regarded as "a Western disease exclusively caused by a decaying bourgeois life style."

Officials believed that the tradition for prudent sexual relationship and public censure upon individual choices, among others, would keep AIDS outside China.

Following this belief, for a long period of time, foreigners who came to China for longer than a year would be required to have an HIV test. Then Chinese people who had stayed abroad for three months or longer were also asked to take the compulsory test upon their return.

Despite the officials' determination to keep AIDS out of China, the disease has spread in the country, with the official figures of HIV infections hitting 840,000 by the end of 2003. With that, the official approach to the disease has changed.

"This year is a turning point, a signal of starting a nationwide campaign against AIDS," Yang said.

"Senior officials from the central government have begun watching this problem closely. Vice-Premier Wu Yi visited AIDS patients in the hardest-hit region in central Henan Province. And the central government invested huge amounts of money into prevention campaigns and medicines for local communities around the country. This commitment shows the determination of the Chinese Government and people to fight the spread," Yang said.

Increased public awareness for the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic has also brought about "very concrete rights for people, such as the right to health, and the right to freedom from discrimination," Li said.

He said human rights protection did not contradict the welfare of public health. "Only when every individual's concrete human rights are protected can public welfare be ensured."

To eliminate discrimination is "the starting point in China's endeavour to win the battle against the AIDS epidemic, and the pillar for a modern course of human rights protection," said Wan Yanhai, director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education.

As well as the incorporation of human rights into the Constitution last March, a series of measures has been taken by the government in this regard, including the lifting of the ban on HIV carriers to be recruited as civil servants.

Participants agree that it is impossible to reduce the risks of HIV infection just by means of ideological preaching or condom distribution.

"If we don't honestly honour the less fortunate groups' right to health, and respect HIV victims' equal rights, the disease is not likely to be kept at bay," experts said.s

Meanwhile, Kan Zhiming is determined to go on with his legal battle, and has appealed to the intermediate court. Professor Yang Shaogang is still backing him. He and his colleagues and students are committed to providing more people living with HIV/AIDS with more legal assistance in their capacity.

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