Pandemic caused few problems with China's HIV/AIDS services

Healthcare services for people living with HIV/AIDS have remained mostly uninterrupted throughout the effective containment of COVID-19 in China, an official from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, said on Thursday.

The ravaging global COVID-19 pandemic, which has already caused nearly 1.5 million deaths, has hindered global HIV/AIDS control and prevention work and may result in an additional 293,000 people getting infected with HIV between 2020 and 2022, according to a report released earlier by UNAIDS.

However, the situation in China is different due to the nation's successful control of COVID-19, said Zhou Kai, acting director of the UNAIDS China Office.

Some Chinese AIDS patients' treatments were apparently affected during the height of the nation's COVID-19 epidemic in February and March, but the situation quickly improved with the containment of the virus, she said.

The UNAIDS China Office conducted a survey earlier that covered more than 1,000 NGOs that provide services for people with HIV/AIDS in China, including those conducting virus tests and consultations. It found that many of the NGOs could not proceed with their normal services for a time due to COVID-19, Zhou said.

But things have returned to normal since March, and now more than 95 percent of these NGOs said they have resumed normal services, she said.

In a sharp contrast, many parts of the world are plagued by stalled or delayed healthcare for people with HIV/AIDS due to COVID-19, especially in some African nations, Zhou said.

A large number of medical equipment and workers, meant for coping with HIV/AIDS, have been diverted to fight COVID-19 in many countries. Meanwhile, COVID-19 prevention and control measures such as lockdowns in cities with COVID-19 outbreaks have worsened AIDS patients' accessibility to drugs, according to UNAIDS.

Wang Kerong, a head nurse at Beijing Ditan Hospital－a major infectious disease hospital in Beijing that receives COVID-19 patients－said despite resources mobilized to treat COVID-19 patients in the hospital, it has kept its doors open to patients with AIDS and people with HIV for services such as drug prescriptions and checkups.

The hospital has also helped more than 10,000 patients living outside Beijing with HIV to get drugs delivered since the beginning of the epidemic.

Xu Duo, an HIV/AIDS control and prevention campaigner in Pu'er, Yunnan province, said HIV/AIDS prevention and control efforts in China have remained uninterrupted since March.

"Due to strict control and prevention measures adopted all over China, many people living with HIV also cultivated a higher awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention and control, which may eventually result in reduced transmission of HIV," she said.