Experts assemble for epidemiological probe

A taskforce has been formed to conduct an epidemiological probe in February and March of this year among the target "patients" in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangdong.

Cai Weiping, a staff member of the No. Eight People's Hospital in Guangzhou and a member of the team leading the probe, has closely followed the emergence of the group since 2004. According to him, most of the people in the group are "middle-aged males who have participated in high-risk sex."

"The symptoms were described according to their subjective experiences without clinical representation. Sometimes they complained of swollen lymph nodes and fevers but doctors could not verify these symptoms," he said.

Cai says three of the men who suspect themselves of being infected with HIV have taken their wives to the hospital, too, but doctors can not locate the symptoms as described by their spouses.

He remembers the extreme case of a man from Guangdong Province, who forged an HIV-positive report and requested a prescription from the doctor.

"He took the medicine for some time and felt that his symptoms disappeared, but all his clinical indices remained almost unchanged. After being questioned by the doctor, he admitted that the HIV positive report was a fake," Cai says.

HIV can be transmitted through three channels: sex, blood and from mother-to-child during birth.

UNAIDS estimated that 740,000 Chinese of the total population of 1.3 billion were living with HIV by the end of 2009. Among them, 105,000 were estimated to be AIDS cases.

By the end of August 2010, the cumulative total of reported HIV-positive cases was 361,599, including 127,203 AIDS cases and 65,104 recorded deaths from the disease.