China's government has helped one AIDS-ravaged village whose plight has been highlighted by international media but is ignoring nearby settlements out of the limelight, farmers dying of the disease say.
"They told us our country can only have one Wenlou village. There is no second," said Mr. Cheng, a 30-year-old farmer in Chenglao, another village less than a mile from the famous Wenlou, giving only his surname.
Peasants in Wenlou, in central China's Henan province, began receiving basic medical care and other assistance this fall after local and international press focused on the appalling swath cut through its population by AIDS.
Help came as China's central government finally began to acknowledge it faced a grave AIDS crisis in rural areas, caused by poor peasants selling blood to stations that used grossly unsanitary methods. But local doctors and farmers say little has been done to help villages that have not been under the media spotlight.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
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12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
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12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
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