More HIV testing results in increase of people with virus detected

The expansion of HIV testing has resulted in an increasing number of people with the virus being detected in China, but about 30 percent of all people living with HIV are not detected yet, a top health official said on Tuesday.

China provided about 200 million HIV tests last year, twice as many as in 2012. As a result the number of new HIV cases reported annually rose from 82,000 in 2012 to 135,000 last year, Wang Hesheng, vice-minister of health, said at an event ahead the World AIDS Day, which falls on Dec 1.

Han Mengjie, chief for AIDS/HIV control and prevention at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that due to delay in getting tested, about one-third of new HIV cases in China reported every year are already AIDS patients, which means they may have lived for many years with HIV before being identified.

Testing and diagnosis can bring health benefits to people living with HIV, and benefit the spread and prevention of HIV. Han called on people who are more likely to contract HIV, such as men who have sex with men or those who have more than one sex partner, to get tested voluntarily in local centers for disease control and prevention or certified hospitals to protect themselves and others.

Jiang Chu, director of the Haidian Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Beijing's Haidian district, said the center has installed 23 vending machines that sell HIV test kits in 13 universities in the district since 2016, so those who suspect they have HIV can get tested in anonymity without having to worry about their privacy.

A target set by the United Nations requires that by 2020, 90% of people who are infected with HIV will be diagnosed.