Yunnan province has been extremely hard hit by HIV, in comparison with other areas in China, accounting for over 25% of all reported cases of HIV in China. In 2007 the JAIDS reports that there were 57,325 cases of HIV in Yunnan province; injecting drug use (IDU) and unsafe sexual behaviour were listed as the 2 major causes of transmission. Risky behaviours are continuing and while there is a decrease in cases of HIV amongst injecting drug users (from 100% in ’89 to 42.5% in 2007), there is still a significant increase in sexually transmitted HIV, up to 47.4% in 2007.
Ethnic minority groups in China have, in the past, been the most affected by HIV, largely due to their lack of public health awareness and access to social services. In fact, they account for nearly half of all reported cases of HIV in Yunnan province. In addition, numbers have drastically increased amongst the Han majority population, which now accounts for over 60% of reported cases in Yunnan. “It (HIV) has begun to move from farmer minority groups in rural areas to worker Han majority urban settings. The high percentage are now due to sexual contact.” (GoKunming. M.)
Keeping this shift in mind, the Yunnan training group decided to focus on Han villages for our HIV prevention education workshops within our target area in Dehong, Yunnan. Our April 2010 training was in a Han village — the first time one of our trainings was given in an entirely Han ethnicity village.