WRITTEN QUESTION P-3053/03 by María Valenciano Martínez-Orozco (PSE) to the Commission. HIV/AIDS in China.
Date: 2003-10-09
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: AIDS, China, EU relations, bilateral relations, health care, human rights, legal action, patient's rights

C 84 E/48

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

3.4.2004

(2004/C 84 E/0053)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3053/03

by María Valenciano Martínez-Orozco (PSE) to the Commission

(9 October 2003)

Subject: HIV/AIDS in China

On 8 September 2003 Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report entitled Locked Doors: People
Living with HIV/AIDS in China, which describes how discrimination, lack of information, cover-ups, and
lack of treatment for many patients are causing the spread of HIV/AIDS in China.

On 30 September 2003 the Spanish daily El Pais published the dramatic story of Zhang Xiaqing, an HIV-
positive 11-year old, who contracted the virus from a blood transfusion in 1995 at the age of nine.
His parents cannot afford treatment and he has been refused admission to school. His case is one of more
than 250 000 according to Beijing (cid:1) but more than one million according to organisations working to
combat the disease (cid:1) where infections were caused during the 1990s as a result of blood-purchasing
networks in Henan province.

Although China has admitted the blood transfusions scandal and taken a number of measures, according
to HRW it still allows provincial and local authorities to cover up the situation, preventing NGOs and
journalists from visiting people with HIV/AIDS. According to the report, no officials have been prosecuted
for the scandal, although some of those who tried to reveal its existence have been arrested for breaching
state secrets.

The United Nations has warned that 10 million people will be infected by 2010 unless urgent measures
are taken.

Will the Commission include on the agenda for the Fifth EU-China Summit, to be held at the end of
October, the question of respect for the human rights of these sick and abandoned people and attempt to
ensure at least that cases are brought to court in order to establish responsibility so that compensation can
be paid to these persons, who will otherwise be inexorably condemned to suffer and die for want of
treatment?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(7 November 2003)

As stated in its recent Communication on EU-China relations, the Commission believes that the current
spread of AIDS in the country poses a serious threat to China’s long-term development and accordingly
requires determined action. The Commission itself is engaged in efforts to combat the epidemic through its
financing, from 1997 to the present day, of a new vaccines testing programme coordinated by the
University of Regensburg’s Institute for Medical Microbiology.

The Commission shares the Honourable Member’s concerns regarding the situation of AIDS sufferers in
China. At the 6th EU-China Summit in Beijing on 30 October, the Union once again raised the general
issue of human rights. However, the bilateral dialogue on human rights conducted by the EU with China
since 1996, whose next session is in Beijing on 25/26 November, seems the most appropriate forum for
tackling the subject of AIDS victims.

(2004/C 84 E/0054)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3060/03

by Philip Claeys (NI) to the Commission

(17 October 2003)

Subject: Cost of Turkey joining the EU

The Osteuropa-Institut, the Munich-based Institute for East European Studies, estimates that Turkey’s
membership of the European Union would cost EUR 5,2 billion a year at the start of EU membership.
The amount would increase to EUR 14 billion a year by the time Turkey was fully integrated into the
Union.