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Yang Tongdan (Wenhui Daily): Real-name registration for HIV/AIDS tests is helpful in carrying out follow-up consultation, treatment and research. However, it will easily undermine carriers' or patients' privacy. The disclosure of their information can be catastrophic. They might lose their jobs, families, friends and a normal life. If the real-name registration is already an inevitable trend, the precondition must be a well-developed mechanism to protect carriers' and patients' privacy, and this mechanism must be operable. Otherwise, if people do not trust the privacy protection mechanism, AIDS prevention and control is by no means an easy job.
Today, most people in China do not understand AIDS very well, and HIV carriers and AIDS patients are often discriminated against and rejected. In this context, the direct result of real-name registration is that those who would like to be tested will refrain from doing so. Carriers may try to conceal their disease or even use fake test paper. As a result, the public's health will be put under even greater danger.
Some experts from the China CDC said once an HIV carrier or AIDS patient is informed of his or her infection, transmission will drop by 70 percent. This is based on statistics and does not suffice to back up real-name registration.
It seems that we need to find milder methods to help those who test HIV positive or are confirmed to have AIDS. Instead of frightening them away by real-name registration, it's better to provide them with guidance on personal activities before and after testing, so as to minimize the risk of spreading their disease to others. By doing so, not only can the disease be effectively prevented from spreading, but the carriers' and patients' family members can also be better protected.
Hao Hong (The Beijing Times): The real-name registration policy is related to a large group of people, so the decision of carrying out the policy must be made after thorough investigation. It's important for decision-makers to listen to various voices carefully before working out a rational scheme. Otherwise, a well-intended policy might end up with an unpleasant result, which is against the intention of decision-makers and supporters of the policy.
According to the statistics released by the China CDC on December 1, 2011, by the end of October 2011, the reported cases of HIV carriers and AIDS patients had reached 430,000. But, an estimation jointly made by the Chinese Ministry of Health, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization shows that the total number of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in China could have reached around 780,000 by the end of 2011. We need to think, how many HIV carriers and AIDS patients, as well as their family members, are not under the prevention and control umbrella?
Before we push forward the real-name registration policy for HIV/AIDS tests, we need to make clear the priorities of AIDS prevention and control work in China. What kind of environment and conditions should be created so that those hidden HIV carriers or AIDS patients will come forward to be tested?
Some people think that if real-name registration is not required, carriers and patients will not receive treatment. But, if there are no effective and overall follow-up treatment measures and privacy protection mechanism, real-name registration is meaningless, even if carriers and patients are informed of their disease.
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