Hospitals have repeatedly refused to operate on a five-year-old AIDS patient with a blocked esophagus because they fear exposure to the disease, the Nanfang Metropolis News reported on Monday.

The boy, whose name was not released, contracted AIDS from his mother, who died in February, the Guangzhou-based newspaper said.

The child is now being treated in the Guangzhou Children's Hospital, where he is looked after by his father.

His trouble intensified when he began to suffer mouth ulcers around the end of 2005. His condition deteriorated, and his esophagus became so enlarged that the child can't even swallow water.

He is being kept alive by intravenous feeding, the newspaper said.

After being refused an operation by many large hospitals in their native Hunan Province, the father said he took his son to Guangdong earlier this month. He was told that the Guangzhou Children's Hospital was the only facility in south China that is capable of performing such an operation on a child.

A charitable organization from Macao promised to cover all of the boy's treatment costs; however, when the hospital learned the boy was an AIDS patient, the operation was canceled, the newspaper said.

Doctors reportedly told the father the hospital is not specialized in treating AIDS patients, and an operation on an AIDS victim may make doctors vulnerable to infection.

Another child who suffered from AIDS and was in need of a similar operation died a month ago in south China after being refused the procedure, the newspaper said.

A Guangdong-based AIDS prevention and treatment expert said an earlier survey showed that medical workers often discriminate against AIDS patients.

(Shanghai Daily via CRI June 26, 2007)