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Intimate partner violence (IPV) in China is a largely understudied, major health risk among women living with HIV. Using structured face-to-face interviews, this research examined partner and couple relationship characteristics associated with physical and sexual IPV among 219 HIV-positive women living with a male partner in Ruili, China. Twenty-nine women (13%) reported past-year occurrences of physical IPV, and 24 (11%) reported sexual IPV. Physical IPV was more common when the woman's partner was of Jingpo ethnicity, drank weekly, or learned of her HIV status indirectly from a third person. Reduced risk of physical IPV was associated with a woman's perceived confidant support that was available through either her partner or a minimum of 2 non-partner confidants. Sexual IPV was more often reported among women with a partner who drank frequently or was concurrently HIV-positive, or in situations where the woman was employed and the partner was not. Sexual IPV was less likely with a partner of Dai ethnicity than Han, the major ethnicity in China. Identifying determinants of IPV vulnerability among women living with HIV may help future interventions to achieve greater impact in similar settings., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Border areas are important locations for understanding HIV transmission. This study examines individual and network correlates of border crossing and equipment sharing among methadone maintenance clients in Ruili City, a Chinese city on the Myanmar border. Data are from 298 clients enrolled in the Ruili Methadone Treatment Center. Clients were interviewed about drug use, HIV/AIDS knowledge, treatment motivation, and their social networks. Multinomial and logistic regression analysis were performed. Thirty percent of clients reported injecting in Myanmar. Compared to drug networks that usually inject in China, networks that inject equally in both places (border crossing) are more likely to share equipment. The association between HIV positive status and border-crossing was marginally significant and robust. Results indicate some added degree of risk among clients and drug networks who border-cross to use drugs. More research is needed to understand this phenomenon.

Most of the HIV-infected long term survivors show strong CD8+ cell noncytotoxic antiviral response (CNAR) that plays as an important factor for maintaining the relative healthy state of infected individuals. HIV infected former blood donors (FBDs) in Anhui, China are the unique population that considered infected by the same or a related HIV strain by the same exposure route, and is better to be studied for viral and host immunological factors associated with disease progression, such as CNAR. We examined CNAR in 63 asymptomatic untreated HIV infected FBDs with different CD4+ cell counts and plasma viral loads. The average CD8+ : CD4+ cell ratio to reach 90% suppression of HIV replication in the groups with CD4+ cell counts of >500, 300-500 and <300 cells/microl were 0.85 : 1, 1.47 : 1 and 1.88 : 1 respectively (P<0.0001). The average CD8+ : CD4+ cell ratio to reach 90% suppression of HIV replication was 1.07 : 1 and 1.66 : 1 in the group with plasma viral load of <30,000 and >30,000 RNA copy/ml respectively (P=0.0002). The results indicated that CNAR activity in long-term HIV-1 infected FBDs correlates directly with CD4+ cell counts, and correlates reversely with plasma viral loads. Our findings in long term infected FBDs confirm the clinical relevancy of CNAR and suggest that CNAR could be an additional marker to help determine the optimal time for starting therapy in HIV infected person.

After nearly three decades of being virtually drug free, use of heroin and other illicit drugs has re-emerged in China as a major public health problem. One result is that drug abuse, particularly heroin injection, has come to play a predominant role in fueling China's AIDS epidemic. The first outbreak of HIV among China's IDUs was reported in the border area of Yunnan province between China and Myanmar where drug trafficking is heavy. Since then drug-related HIV has spread to all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. This paper provides an overview to HIV/AIDS transmission through injection drug use in China. It begins with a brief history of the illicit drug trade in China, followed by a discussion of the emergence of drug related AIDS, and a profile of drug users and their sexual partners who have contracted the virus or who are vulnerable to infection. It ends by summarizing three national strategies being used by China to address both drug use and AIDS as major health threats.