A report by an anti-discrimination organization reveals that more than 60 percent of State-owned enterprises still require that job applicants should be tested for the hepatitis B virus.

This goes against a government stipulation jointly released a year ago by the Ministry of Health and other central government departments, which specifies that hospitals should never include a hepatitis B test in medical checkups for job recruitment purposes.

This stipulation is meant to prevent hepatitis B virus carriers from being discriminated against when applying for a job.

There is enough evidence to show that hepatitis B carriers will never pass the virus on to others through daily work contact. To the ignorance of many, the virus is only contagious through the exchange of bodily fluids.

It is unjustifiable to discriminate against carriers of hepatitis B virus, whose number totals more than 100 million in the country. They have the right to be treated as equals when it comes to enrollment in universities and recruitment as employees.

Yet, such discrimination is still practiced despite the various laws and administrative stipulations against such practices.

One of the stipulations even specifies that a working unit will be fined 1,000 yuan if it coerces job applicants into taking a hepatitis B test. To eliminate the discrimination, the Ministry of Health and other central government departments last year jointly introduced a ban on hospitals providing such tests in job recruitment checkups.

So why do so many State-owned enterprises flout the stipulation?

They don't care about the fines of 1,000 yuan, which proves too low and weak as a punishment. And they know that most applicants who have been discriminated against will choose to swallow the result instead of filing a lawsuit against them.

As a matter of fact, there is no report that any enterprises or hospitals have been fined or penalized in other ways for discriminating against hepatitis B virus carriers.

There is a deep-rooted bias against hepatitis B virus carriers. Many people still believe that it is not safe to work with colleagues who carry such a virus.

So, besides harsher penalties against hospitals and enterprises that fail to abide by the stipulations, much still needs to be done to educate people about the hepatitis B virus.