11. How do the rates of HBV compare to HIV in China?

Now if you look at what you know, turn on your television, read the newspaper, you will think the major health risk facing countries like China is HIV or the Avian flu. So let’s look at the facts. HIV in China - there were approximately 650,000 people living with HIV in China in 2005, representing 0.055 percent of the population. But look at hepatitis B. There are 130 million living with chronic hepatitis B representing ten percent of the population, but yet even China is not doing too much about it. It seems like they don’t have the political stomach to really mount a major effort to deal with this problem and so if you go to China, you will probably see posters about HIV and billboards and recently, because of the Olympics they want to make it a smoke-free Olympics. They have posters about anti-smoking but nowhere if you walk around in China do you see a single poster about hepatitis B.