Lawsuit alleges ‘wrong’ HIV test

A former drug user in Chengdu, Sichuan province, is applying for a lawsuit against the health agencies that wrongly diagnosed him as HIVpositive.

In the statement of charges submitted on Tuesday to Wuhou District People’s Court in Chengdu, Zhong Xiaowei, 54, is demanding an apology from the Chengdu Municipal Center for Disease Control and Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control for their alleged wrongful diagnosis on Dec 5, 2008.

He requested the apologies be published in the media and asked for compensation of more than 933,000 yuan ($141,000), which covers economic losses and mental injury.

The court has suggested mediation between Zhong and both centers. If they cannot reach an agreement, it will proceed through further legal procedures, said Ouyang Jiu, a lawyer with Sichuan Yingji Law Firm.

Ouyang and his colleague, She Yong, have offered free legal services to Zhong.

In 2001, Zhong met his girlfriend and both decided to quit drugs. They started running a restaurant where Zhong was the cook and his girlfriend did the odds and ends, earning them over 1,000 yuan a day.

In December 2008, the couple went to Chengdu Municipal Center for Disease Control for a premarital checkup.

The center was only qualified to give a preliminary result, and the confirmation that Zhong was HIV-positive was made by Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control.

Zhong’s girlfriend left him and he did not take any medicine, only wishing to die. But his condition did not worsen and he did not have the symptoms of HIV-positive patients.

He was retested at West China Hospital of Sichuan University and the Jinniu district center for disease control in December 2015. He was given the all-clear.

The Chengdu and Sichuan centers retested Zhong’s original blood sample and got the same positive result.

It led them to conclude the sample does not belong to Zhong, but they do not know why a mix-up took place.