Authorities stress rights of HIV boy

China's health authorities and the United Nations have urged the local government to protect the rights of an 8-year-old HIV-positive boy who allegedly faces expulsion from his village, and recommended the incident be investigated.

China's National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Saturday that it had urged its local branches in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, to investigate the case and demanded local authorities guarantee schooling and medical treatment for the boy, known as Kunkun (pseudonym).

Kunkun is allegedly facing expulsion from Shufangya village, Liqiao township in Sichuan Province for being HIV-positive. More than 200 villagers, including the boy's grandfather, are said to have signed an agreement on December 7 agreeing to expel the boy in an effort to "protect villagers' health."

UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, also issued a statement on Friday expressing its concern for the boy, and urging that HIV/AIDS carriers enjoy the same rights as other citizens.

Discrimination may discourage people living with HIV from getting tested and accessing treatment, including life-saving antiretroviral drugs, according to the statement.

"Stigma and discrimination are our biggest enemies in the fight to end HIV … But sadly, this week's reports demonstrate that breaching confidentiality, ignorance and fear continue to have devastating consequences for those living with HIV," the statement noted.

However, while the news has attracted a great deal of attention nationally, the story took an unexpected turn as local residents and officials claimed that the so-called "expulsion agreement" was staged by two reporters in an effort to raise public awareness, according to The Beijing News newspaper on Sunday.

However, a 40-year-old relative of Kunkun, surnamed Luo, seemed to confirm to the Global Times on Sunday the family's desire to be rid of the boy, saying, "I really don't want to use the word 'burden.' But he has already caused lots of trouble for the family so we prefer to send him away," adding that the village has isolated Kunkun's family due to his condition.

"I know that the disease is not transmissible through saliva and all that, but we are still scared," Luo said.

"We have launched an investigation into the veracity of the news. We have no conclusion yet as to whether the reporters staged the expulsion agreement," an official from the publicity department of Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, surnamed Liu, told the Global Times.

"However, Kunkun's settlement and medical treatment are our priority," he noted.

"Medical and psychological experts have been sent to the village to help Kunkun, and to reduce the panic in the village by educating them about HIV/AIDS."

Liu noted that the authorities preferred Kunkun to receive treatment and schooling near his home, as this will make it easier for him to integrate into society in the future.

There were some 497,000 HIV-positive people in China as of the end of October, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Other experts have estimated a much higher number.

Wang Ning, deputy head of the HIV/AIDS division of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times on Sunday that Kunkun's case might be isolated, as China has poured considerable resources over the past decades into protecting HIV/AIDS carriers' rights.

Chinese laws have banned discrimination against HIV/AIDS carriers in education and employment.

However, Li Dun, a professor at Tsinghua University Center for Study of Contemporary China, told the Global Times discrimination is still widespread, and is caused mainly by poor government supervision.

The discrimination is also caused by fear arising from ignorance, as even some hospital will not treat HIV/AIDS carriers, and cases of government bodies refusing to employ HIV-positive workers continue to arise, Li said.