HIV-positive farmer cleared of disease doubted
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — Jilin farmer Wen Congcheng, who caused a stir earlier this week after he was cleared of HIV/AIDS six years after first testing HIV positive, says his relatives and fellow villagers do not believe he is free from the disease. Speaking to Xinhua, Wen, a 37-year-old farmer from the village of Erdaogou in Jilin province, said he just wanted to be recognized by people around him as a healthy man.
”People in my village, even some of my relatives, think I lied about testing HIV negative in return for money,” said Wen, “I really want to let more people know that I am not a HIV carrier anymore.”
In 2001, Wen said he went to donate blood with his eldest brother’s wife to a local blood donation center in Jilin City. Hiseldest brother had received a blood transfusion in an operation ata local hospital and the hospital had asked his brother’s relatives to donate blood in return.
Blood donation was nothing new to Wen. He said he and his brothers were regular donors in the late 1980s.
However, according to Wen, two of his older brothers were both diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. His second brother died before the villagers in Erdaogou began to receive HIV tests in 2001. But the symptoms he showed before his death resembled those of villagers who died later and who were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, Wen said.
It is unclear how his family members contracted the disease but it appears there was a possibility they were donating infected blood, although there is no official confirmation of this.
When Wen and his sister-in-law went to donate blood in Jilin in 2001, they were both told their blood was not qualified.
Later that year, when he was working in Shenyang, he learnt that Liu Baogui, then director of the HIV/AIDS and STD Section of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Jilin, had visited his home and delivered test results which said he and his sister-in-law were HIV positive.
Wen did not believe the results were true. “I did not believe that I had HIV/AIDS at that time, because I thought it was such a rare disease,” he said.
But in 2003, Wen was called to Chuanying District CDC to receive an HIV test, because the CDC was carrying out a large-scale screening program for HIV among blood donors. Wen tested positive and the result was confirmed by the Jilin Provincial CDC.
”Since I was told the test result in 2003, I thought I was going to die soon,” said Wen.
”I did not save any money, didn’t buy a house or try to get married - I lost all my hopes,” he said.
Instead, he bought a cheap car and operated an illegal taxi service. He didn’t own a house and stayed with friends or relatives.
Everything changed in July this year. Wen tested negative at the Clinical Hospital of Beihua University in Jilin City. Wen said he then went to six other medical institutions including the provincial CDC for HIV tests, which all turned out to be negative.
”At first I could not believe it, but then I felt so relieved when all the hospitals I went to confirmed the result,” said Wen, “I can now think about my future.”
Wen showed the test sheets to Xinhua reporters for the positive test result given by the Jilin Provincial CDC in December of 2003 and the negative test result given by the Beihua Hospital in July of 2007.
He now plans to go to Shenyang in the neighboring Liaoning Province to work and to save money for a house.
But first he must pass a final HIV test to confirm he is not infected with the disease. The Jilin Provincial CDC will announce the results of this second test on Friday.
”The probability of an HIV-infected person turning HIV negative is very small,” said Shao Yiming, chief scientist of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention under the Chinese CDC.
”So it is worth further research and investigation to verify Wen’s positive and subsequent negative test results,” he said.
He said that if Wen’s blood samples for the positive and negative test results were kept intact, it would be easy to find out if they are from the same person.
However, the Provincial CDC of Jilin only kept the blood serum of Wen’s HIV test in 2003.
”With blood serum, it is difficult to make such a comparison,” said Shao, “but some well-equipped labs might still be able to find ways to verify if the blood serum was from Wen.”
If all the positive and subsequent negative test results are verified, Wen would be the first person in China to become free ofHIV after having contracted it.
”I am pretty sure there are no problems with the blood samples and the tests,” said Liu Baogui, former director of the HIV/AIDS and STD Section of the CDC of Jilin City.
Liu informed Wen of the positive result of his test in 2001, and accompanied Wen to receive the second test in 2003. He also helped Wen receive CD4 lymphocyte, or T-cells, tests, the number of which decides if a person needs antiretroviral treatment.
However, the number of T-cells in Wen’s blood stood at 800-1000 for all the tests, which showed that his immune system functioned normally.
Usually, a HIV-infected person will be given anti-virus treatment if the number of his T-cells is below 500, Liu said, so Wen never received any anti-virus treatment.
”I can only remember one or two cases in the world about people claiming themselves to be HIV negative several years after they tested positive,” said Shao. And scientists still harbour doubts over those cases, he said.
In 2003, Andrew Stimpson, a 25-year-old Briton, tested HIV negative 14 months after testing positive in May 2002. The case has never been scientifically explained.
