The government maintains there are only 20,000 HIV-infected people nationwide. The Chengdu City AIDS Prevention and Management Regulations, which go into effect in May, prohibit AIDS patients and people who have tested positive for HIV from marrying. They order police to test people in high-risk groups, such as prostitutes and drug users, within five days of an arrest, and require separate incarceration facilities for those who have tested positive. The regulations mandate AIDS tests for returning Chinese who have been abroad for more than a year, and they suggest that pregnant women with AIDS may be persuaded to abort their fetuses if medicine that could prevent the transmission of the virus to the child is unavailable. A part of the law that has not been made public, as can happen in China, also bans people with HIV or AIDS from working as kindergarten teachers or surgeons, among other professions.
Violators are subject to large fines.
What's unusual in Chengdu is that some of the restrictions have caused a public outcry. The Chengdu Worker's Daily strongly criticized the law. The newspaper commented that while the rules are well-intentioned, the government should not treat people with AIDS and HIV like animals. The most likely result of the law, the newspaper said, would not be to stem AIDS, but to reduce concern for other people. The U.N. AIDS program in Beijing has criticized the legislation, as have Chinese experts.