Taojun Tao, director of the Department of Dermatology at Hangzhou Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, encountered a familiar patient this year: every two or three months he would ask the doctor to conduct an HIV blood test for him.
This familiar patient is not very old and has a baby face. "I feel sorry for him, so I told him that there was no need to do the examination again, and that it should be fine. But he still does not feel reassured," Taojun Tao said.
The patient in Tao's words is surnamed Ning, only twenty-some years old, and is a graduate student at a prestigious university. It was a bar-hopping experience two years ago that plunged him into deep fear from which he cannot extricate himself till today.
One day two years ago, Mr. Ning went to a bar with a group of friends. Later, drunk, he went to a hotel room with a girl from the next table. Because he had consumed too much alcohol that night, he did not even see what the woman looked like, and of course did not take any safety precautions.
Two weeks later, Mr. Ning woke up one night to find himself drenched in cold sweat, and the next morning his temperature was 37.5°C with mild fever. His heart sank immediately. Since then, he has been suffering from "AIDS phobia". Every time there is a sign of physical discomfort, he immediately thinks of AIDS. In the last two years, he has undergone more than ten tests.
Taojun Tao reminds everyone that the only way to truly prevent AIDS is to maintain self-discipline.
By Lin Dan
Contributed by Xu Youjia