China's Plan to Ban HIV-Infected People from Public Bathhouses Criticized

China is planning to ban HIV-infected people from using public bathhouses, spas and hot springs, provoking criticism from the United Nations' AIDS agency, according to Google Health News.

Government health experts have expressed their concern, claiming that China's plan to ban HIV-infected people is a deliberate practice of discrimination, according to ABC News. Health experts also stressed that this alleged ban is unnecessary. China's State Council posted the draft regulation online which orders spas and similar establishments to display signs prohibiting "people with sexually transmitted disease, AIDS and infectious skin diseases". UNAIDS coordinator in China, Hedia Belhadj, said that on Monday, the organization became most concerned by the provision and called for it to be removed.

Belhadj also stressed that "there is no risk of transmission of HIV in a spa or bathhouse setting". "UNAIDS recommends that restrictions preventing people living with HIV from accessing bath houses, spas and other similar facilities be removed from the final draft of this policy," Belhadj told the AFP. She also urged that "any other policies that prevent people living with HIV from accessing public or private services also be revised".

However, China continues to ban those with the virus from becoming civil servants and is also at a high risk of losing their jobs if their employees learn about their real status. Some HIV-infected people in China have also tried getting medical treatment from various hospitals in the country but have been rejected.

"Over so many years, there has been no epidemiological investigation showing anybody being infected because of exposure in public bathhouses," Wu Hao, a Beijing researcher quoted on the website of a national AIDS prevention center overseen by the National Health and Family Planning Commission said. "It seems to have gone too far to bar HIV patients from entering baths," he added.