CHINA FUNDS GAY BAR TO HELP STOP AIDS
International, News by Simon McD on November 30, 2009 at 12:03 pm
According to Reuters, Dali – a town with China’s highest AIDS rate – has opened a government-funded gay bar in order to reach out to China’s growing gay community.
Same-sex transmission accounts for about one-third of new HIV infections in China, the minister of health said this month.
Founder Zhang Jianbo hopes that the bar will be a meeting place for gay men, especially from rural villages, who used to meet in a patch of woods near the town.
The bar offers sex education and free condoms, in addition to companionship, Jianbo said in an interview with the Beijing Times.
Though funded by the government, the bar is staffed by volunteers from a local non-government organisation that works to prevent AIDS.
China now has about 100,000 AIDS cases, but some experts are concerned that HIV could spread. The government has switched to a strategy of outreach to the gay community, as part of efforts over the past few years to fight the spread of HIV.
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Tags: AIDS, Conditions and Diseases, gay, Gay community, health, HIV, Reuters, Sex education
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