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SCMP Reporter

I REFER to a report which appeared in the South China Morning Post, on October 19, headlined, 'AIDS centre protest lashed'.

  I find it very sad that the residents of Richland Gardens, Kowloon Bay, would resist the building of an 11-storey health clinic in their neighbourhood, based on the fact that one part of the health clinic will provide necessary services for people infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

  The residents are correct to fear contracting HIV, but they are wrong in thinking that they can contract the virus from a health care facility in their neighbourhood, or that this facility will bring drug users and drug trafficking into Richland Gardens.

  HIV can only be spread through the following four ways:    Unprotected sexual contact with an HIV-infected person.

   Sharing of contaminated needles and syringes by intravenous drug users.

   Transfusion of infected blood or blood products.

   From mother to child in the womb, during birth, or from breast-feeding.

  Currently there are 69 health-care centres in the territory, of which nine operate HIV infection clinics. Many of these clinics are located in close proximity to residential areas and some are located within housing estates so that they are easily accessible to the community.

  There has never been a documented case in Hong Kong or anywhere else in the world of a neighbourhood resident contracting HIV from a local health clinic.

  The residents cannot become infected with HIV through everyday social contact with HIV-infected people who use the facilities at the health care centre in Richland Gardens. They cannot contract the disease from eating in the same restaurants, using the same toilets, drinking from the same water fountains, or any other everyday social contact.

  The Richland Gardens residents' fear seems to come from a misunderstanding about the way HIV is spread.

  If this is the case, then AIDS education programmes provided by the Government should ease their fears, and enable the centre to open in 1997 and effectively serve the community.

  Unfortunately, if the residents already understand the way HIV is spread, then it is not fear, but discrimination which propels their disapproval of the building of the health centre on its current site. Not only would this violate the Disability Discrimination Ordinance, but the citizenry of a modern and educated society should not accept this type of blatant discrimination.

  Many other cities and nations throughout the world have ignored AIDS, only to face major economic and social problems once the disease spread through the population.

  There are currently an estimated 20 million people infected with HIV throughout the world, of which three million are in South and Southeast Asia according to the World Health Organisation. Southeast Asia has the highest percentage increase of new cases and most people are contracting the disease from heterosexual intercourse.

  AIDS is not a disease that affects only gay and intravenous drug users.

  In Hong Kong, there are only 12 reported cases of people who have been infected with HIV due to intravenous drug use as compared to nearly 500 known cases of people who have been infected with HIV due to sexual contact, the majority through heterosexual intercourse.

  As there are currently nine health centres treating HIV patients, and only 12 people who have contracted the disease from intravenous drug use, the chances of increased drug use in Richland Gardens is slim to none.

  Hong Kong is in a position to effectively deal with stopping the spread of AIDS if people make an effort to understand the disease and the way in which it is transmitted.

  Only education will stop the spread of AIDS, not ignorance and discrimination.

  STEVE SPERBER Taikoo Shing 



Residents wrong about AIDS risk