HIV/AIDS in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

Abstract

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the northwest was ranked sixth in the numbers of reported cases of (HIV) in China up to the end of December 2017. By that time, HIV had affected 0.23% of the total population (56,588 cases had been reported since 1995), the province with third highest cumulative incidence in China. The HIV epidemic in XUAR has similar features to other provinces where the use of non-sterile injecting equipment by people who inject drugs (PWID) generated the development of the epidemic. These similarities included age and gender distribution. The majority of people living with HIV (PLWH) were 20–39 years of age at diagnosis, and women made up 36.7% of reported cases. Sexual transmission was the major transmission route for both women (85.4%) and men (60%) as of 2017. The scale of sexual transmission for women was a specific feature of the epidemic in XUAR. Interventions have had a positive impact. From 2002 to 2017, there were reductions in the numbers of HIV infection, in all of the sentinel surveillance groups. The most significant reduction was among PWID. In 2002, 52.6% tested positive, while in 2017, only 8.15% tested positive. FSW and clients attending clinics for sexually transmitted infections had low prevalence of HIV infection, less than 1% consistently. Male-male sexual transmission is becoming an important transmission route—7.4% of sexual transmissions for men were from male-male sex, and the annual sero-conversion rate in this group was about 5% by 2017. The major challenges in addressing prevention is targeting and focusing interventions to meet the specific needs of ethnic groups and to further extend interventions into key populations at higher risk.