China's Hunan to HIV test "recreational workers"

BEIJING, July 27 (Reuters) HIV tests will be compulsory for workers at ''recreational venues'' in Hunan Province in central China, to try and stem an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, the Xinhua news agency said today.

Prostitution is rampant in China, which also has hundreds of millions of migrant workers who are nearly completely ignorant of the risks of AIDS.

That volatile mix could help AIDS spread into the general population, after so far being largely confined to drug users and clusters of villagers and workers infected through selling blood in the 1990s.

The province where Mao Zedong was born ranks eighth in China in reported HIV/AIDS cases, with a total of 4,379 cases by June 30, Xinhua said, citing Chen Xiaochun, deputy director of the provincial health department.

Sexual transmission was responsible for 38 per cent of cases reported in Hunan in the first half of this year, up from 31 percent in 2006 and 10 to 15 per cent in previous years, the department's data showed.

Experts estimate the actual number of the province's HIV/AIDS cases may be 20,000 to 30,000, Xinhua said.

''The main cause of the increase of sexually-transmitted HIV cases is the increase in the number of migrant workers who have contracted the disease via sex,'' Chen Xi of the provincial disease prevention and control centre was cited as saying.

Nearly 58 per cent of the reported HIV infections in Hunan were caused by drug users sharing needles, Xinhua said.

China had 183,733 officially reported HIV/AIDS cases in 2006, but experts estimated there were more likely 650,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China.

During the annual legislative meeting in March this year, Shanghai delegate Li Dingguo, a doctor at the prestigious Jiaotong University Hospital, proposed mandatory AIDS testing at the city's clinics and hospitals.

Widespread stigma made patients reluctant to reveal their status, increasing the risk of transmission to doctors, nurses and other patients, he said.

REUTERS GT RN1926