Word: henan
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AIDS was the last thing Gui Xien expected to find in the remote peasant villages of China's Henan province. But when he visited there in 1999, as a favor to a fellow doctor whose patients were dying from a mysterious disease, it didn't take Gui long to make a diagnosis. The stories were all the same: first the husband would fall ill, then his wife, and after a few months, both would be dead, covered in sores and dark, wine-colored blotches. Gui had stumbled on a full-fledged AIDS epidemic, something he had only read about...
...took 11 samples from the villagers, but could afford to test only six of them, with 1,600 yuan ($200) out of his own pocket. All were positive for HIV. But Henan health officials, reluctant to expose an outbreak that originated in a government-sponsored program, were slow to respond and refused to allow Gui to return to the villages. So he and three students sneaked back in during a long weekend holiday when he knew the gatekeepers might be off duty. For three days he went house to house, collecting samples, counseling patients and explaining how the virus...
This time Gui sent his report directly to Beijing, where it was treated with the seriousness it deserved. Henan officials were finally pressured into action, but this only made Gui more unpopular in the province, and he became the target of smear campaigns and physical threats...
...Performance Of The Week AIDS patients in China's Henan province received an unexpected guest during Lunar New Year: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Wen shook hands with HIV-positive villagers, hugged children orphaned by the disease, and urged the local government to do more. A third of the province's residents are HIV-positive; most contracted the virus while giving blood at tainted blood banks in the 1990s. For years, China downplayed its AIDS problem. No longer: Wen is the most senior official to visit Henan's AIDS sufferers...
...five times more carcinogens such as cadmium and arsenic. One hundred million counterfeit cigarettes are made in China each year (about 85% of the world's total), according to the country's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, which is now trying to snuff out the fakes. Last week, officials in Henan, China's second largest tobacco-growing province, torched $360,000 worth of contraband cigarettes...