Police seek breakthrough as HIV immunizes carriers from penalties

Even with pus running down his arms and legs, Liao Zhong still craved whatever drugs he could get his hands on.

The HIV-sufferer would sit in his armchair in his courtyard waiting for his fixer to arrive. Liao, 44, would sell on some of the drugs to afford his own habit. He had a video camera to monitor the outside of his home to make sure the police were not around during his deals.

Liao's wife and two sons tried to help. But could not.

Even if the police detained him, where would they put a HIV carrier, they would ask themselves. The country's law prohibits the detention of offenders with infectious diseases.

The dilemma ended after a rehabilitation center for drug users with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, was set up in August in Menghai County in Xishuangbanna, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Liao was the center's first attendee.

Initially, he resisted treatment and tried to commit suicide.

Three months on, and ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, nobody knows if the treatment will rid Liao of his addiction. But the festers on his arms and legs have disappeared, leaving only scars on his dark skin.

Liao started taking drugs in 1994 after he was on a building site in Myanmar. He was given "something special" to ease the pain. He was told he had HIV after he was sent to a labor camp in Yuxi City in Yunnan in 2001 for compulsory rehabilitation.

Drugs and AIDS haunt Yunnan.

Drugs taken intravenously used to be a major cause of HIV infections in the province, which borders the notorious Golden Triangle of narcotics in southeast Asia.

Even today, when drugs such as "ice" do not require needles, many addicts are still vulnerable to the virus, usually through unprotected sex, according to Gui Dandan, director of Menghai's public health bureau.

Drug trafficking is a major problem as there are many ways in and out of Myanmar from Menghai. This poses a greater challenge for AIDS prevention, Gui says.

After Liao left the labor camp in 2003, he was known as a troublemaker in the eyes of his fellow villagers, says Tan Jieming, police chief of Menghai. "They think a drug user and dealer is a threat to their children."

Liao was also a bully in his village. He would steal from vendors, be it vegetables or meat, believing the police could do nothing about a HIV or AIDS patient, says Tan.

Liao used to make police feel incompetent. Villagers would feel unsafe with him around, Tan says.

The dilemma is not in Xishuangbanna alone.