AIDS experts: 'Mobile men with money' risky
By Luo Man (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-02 06:15

Business people, on the other hand, have late night dinners with colleagues and, as often as not, cap those off with obligatory toasts that sometimes lead to visits to massage parlours, KTV establishments or bathhouses where prostitutes are available.

The lack of hard statistics is a problem. There is "no formal survey of this kind of group," said Wu Zunyou, a doctor at the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is a highly sensitive topic and the government only knows about this group through their use of sex clinics.

Mobile men with money are on virtually nobody's radar right now.

The responsibility for finding solutions may rest with the corporations that employ many of these men.

A Global Business Coalition focusing on HIV/AIDS already exists. It uses business resources to tackle the spread of the disease.

"Mobile men with money are usually working with somebody and, if they are working for somebody why can't we get something going," said Manchester.

The coalition met representatives from the Ministry of Health in March. At the time, a consensus was reached to work together to find ways to fight the disease.

Efforts to unite the business community have been reasonably successful in Beijing, said Bill Valentino, Bayer's manager of public relations and the coalition point man in China.

"There's a lot more engagement in Beijing," he said.

What is needed, said Valentino, are corporate policies to protect employees and give them the privacy they need to get tested without fear of repercussions.

"Here, when you talk to an employer, there is no guarantee of what may happen," he said.

"You don't know where the information is going. It's a very big issue."