Hong Kong’s HIV problem: prejudice is the real malady in a society where intolerance is still prevalent - and accepted

Anson Au says the cutbacks in government funding for HIV prevention and treatment in the face of rising infection rates among gay men point to an unpalatable truth: discrimination against sexual minorities is tolerated in Hong Kong

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Survey research on Hongkongers’ attitudes towards LGBT people, sexual orientation, discrimination protection, and same-sex marriage shows that much intolerance still exists in the city. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 8:00pm, 31 May 2018Updated: 8:51pm, 31 May 2018

The results of the most recent survey by Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection on HIV prevalence and risky behaviour, released this week, found that 6.54 per cent of 4,133 respondents who said they had sex with men have HIV, a rise from roughly 4 per cent in the past three surveys.

The Virtual Aids Office, an initiative under Hong Kong’s Department of Health, has also just released a report drafted in March that shows the number of cases of HIV infection has increased over the past 10 years, amounting to an overall growth of as much as 50 per cent. In May last year, the government’s Advisory Council on Aids said the number of Hongkongers living with HIV could increase by 35 per cent in the next four years, with an estimated 74 per cent of infections affecting men who have sex with men.

We appear to be bordering on a health epidemic for HIV/Aids. Given the virus’ prevalence in men who have sex with men, the issue hasn’t earned much attention among the wider public, but where it has, it invokes much controversy and political rifts.

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Conservatives are largely indifferent to the news. The refrain often goes: why should taxpayers pay for health care for people who “get sick by their own choice”? Why should the government give special treatment to sexual minorities?

The claim is in fact false. The Hong Kong government cut funding for HIV prevention at the end of last year, forcing testing groups and outreach services to cut back on services or charge users for basic sexual health services. The cost of HIV/Aids treatment was never a heavy burden on taxpayers in the first place, and the government does not give special treatment to sexual minorities.

Besides, we contribute our tax dollars to treatments for cancer and other diseases that are related to smoking, drinking, and other wilful lifestyle behaviour, yet we’re not up in arms over this.

Assertions about wasted tax dollars and special treatment by the government are a smokescreen for the real reasons HIV/Aids is such a contested topic, and they hide the full picture of why HIV infection rates are rising. It comes down to a conservative intolerance of sexual minorities, which leads to a belief that members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) community who get infected with HIV are only getting what they deserve.