Mon August 4, 2003 09:12 AM ET
Reuters
By Juliana Liu
BEIJING (Reuters) — A HIV-positive couple has wed publicly for the first time in China in a ceremony widely reported in state newspapers, a sign more sufferers may be ready to tackle rampant discrimination.
Doctors and AIDS activists said the couple's openness in allowing the press to cover their wedding would help fight discrimination and boost AIDS prevention in China, which says it has around 1 million HIV sufferers.
Cao Xueliang, 37, and his bride Wang Daiying, 34, traded vows at a wedding banquet in their native town of Gongmin in the southwestern province of Sichuan, guests said.
"The new couple and the guests were very happy, like any other normal wedding," Xiao Wei, an aid worker who attended the festivities, told Reuters by telephone. "The new couple said they would overcome all difficulties together in the future."
Xiao, who works with a Sino-British AIDS prevention project active in Gongmin, said more than 200 guests attended last Friday's wedding, including some who are HIV-positive.
"Local villagers didn't mind sharing a meal with them," he said.
All 67 HIV patients in the town were infected as a result of illegal blood selling in the central province of Henan in the early 1990s, the official China Daily said on Monday.
Wang was infected with HIV by her former husband He Yong, who went to Henan with Cao to sell their blood, it said. He died in September 2002, leaving his wife and daughter.
The Sichuan newlyweds allowed state newspapers to splash color photographs of themselves, both wearing striped shirts and corsages of red roses, laughing and dining with guests at the bride's modest courtyard home.
"The newlyweds already decided before marriage they did not want to have children," the Beijing Morning Post said in a half-page story accompanied by legal and medical commentary.
Experts believe the true number of China's HIV sufferers is closer to 1.5 million, and the United Nations says the number could soar to 10 million by 2010 if the government does not do more to contain the disease.
"Right now, most HIV-positive and AIDS patients are not open about their status," said Han Ning, a doctor at Beijing's Ditan hospital.
"If they could learn from the new couple to be open about their personal experiences, they would be better understood by the public," he said.
Sufferers cannot legally secure jobs in cities if they fail mandatory health tests, while others in certain parts of China cannot marry if they are infected with the virus, activists say.
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