A Chinese man wrongly diagnosed with AIDS is fighting an uphill battle for compensation, The Paper, a state-run publication, reported May 18.
The ten-year ordeal of Yang Shoufa, a 53-year-old farmer living in Henan Province, central China, began in late 2003 when he underwent a blood test for a health survey. The doctor informed him that he was infected with “that kind disease,” meaning AIDS. The diagnosis was corrected only in 2012, by which time Yang’s life was already in shambles.
AIDS is frighteningly common in rural Henan, one of the poorest parts of China. Many people in Yang’s village contracted AIDS from selling blood. Because Yang had also sold blood, he didn’t doubt the results of the test.
Ten Years of Torment
For nearly a decade, until Yang got his condition re-diagnosed, he lead the life of a “condemned prisoner.” Though Yang did not in fact have AIDS, the placebo effect and social ostracization he suffered was enough to make his life akin to that of a “condemned prisoner.” described as an energetic and hardworking man.
Already poor, Yang’s wife decided to leave him. Though her first attempt at divorce was rejected, she later invented a story saying that she had been abducted and sold into marriage, which the court accepted in 2011.
