China lifts travel ban on people with HIV and Aids

China has announced that it is lifting the ban on anyone with HIV or Aids entering the country. The change in quarantine laws comes just days before the Shanghai World Expo is launched, an event the Chinese hope will attract around four million visitors from abroad.
Officially, the State Council said that the lifting of the ban was due to evidence that border control did very little to stop the spread of HIV. It also said that there is also a greater understanding of the disease in China now. The ban had lasted for  20 years. The cabinet also pointed out that enforcing the ban had proven extremely inconvenient when it was trying to host big events such as the Beijing Olympics. For such events, China recognised that a temporary lifting of the ban was the easiest way around the problem. It first did so in 1995, when Beijing played host to the World Women’s Conference.
Campaigner for the rights of those infected with HIV and medical professor, Zhang Beichuan, said that the lifting of the ban was a huge leap forward. He said that now the government was starting to view the disease as a public health issue, rather than a disease imported into the country by people who live corrupt lifestyles.
Many of the Chinese who have been affected by HIV are provincial farmers who contracted the disease when there was a push by biomedical companies to stock up their blood banks. Many farmers leapt at a chance to sell their blood to bolster their wages. Unfortunately, many of the blood collecting operations were not monitored and were unsanitary, allowing the rapid spread of HIV.