Wall Street Journal: China Grapples With HIV Cases Among Gay Men, but Stigma Runs Deep
“A health report from a southeastern corner of China has brought a disturbing truth into the open: HIV infections are growing rapidly among young, gay Chinese men. The trend is worrying health authorities — and prompting criticism of their efforts to respond — in a country that until 2001 classified homosexuality as a mental illness and where there is almost no public discussion of gay issues or rights. The report this month from health authorities in Nanchang, a city of five million, said the HIV infection rate among students at the city’s colleges grew by 43 percent annually in the past five years. More than 80 percent of the new cases were the result of male same-sex encounters…” (Wang, 9/27).