Hep-B - It was only a matter of time before a foreign company got caught

So far cases of discrimination over HBV have been mainly made against Chinese companies

The Beijing government last year decided to outlaw anti HBV carrier discrimination

A 24-year-old Chinese job applicant recently filed a lawsuit against Nokia in China alleging that a local unit of the telecoms giant refused him employment because he is a carrier of the Hepatitis-B virus (HBV). We’ve reported before on discrimination against HBV carriers in China and despite the government banning discrimination for government posts Chinese companies routinely refuse to employ people who carry HBV, even though it is mainly transmitted at birth, through sexual contact or by contaminated needles. The Chinese Ministry of Health estimates that over 130mn Chinese are HBV carriers with a further 30mn diagnosed as HBV patients, meaning the virus has affected liver function. Open discrimination against HBV carriers appears to be most prevalent in the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong province in southern China.

This case is one of the first in China involving a foreign company accused of discriminating against a HBV carrier. The unnamed Henan graduate filed a lawsuit in March against Nokia’s subsidiary in Dongguan, Guangdong, accusing the company of rescinding a job offer after discovering he was HBV positive. This latest lawsuit follows others including one last January by a Hubei man who sued Hong Kong technology company VTech Holdings in Dongguan after he claimed he was rejected for a vacancy due to being a HBV carrier.

The situation is so severe that many workers feel that contracting hep-B is the end of their working life – the press and public were shocked when a man hanged himself in Zhongshan, again in Guangdong, just days after he was rejected by a factory run by giant Chinese appliance maker Galanz because he had hep-B. The Southern Metropolis News, a Guangzhou-based paper reported that despite passing all the employment tests he was denied employment due to hep-B. He reportedly told a friend before his death that he would be ashamed to go home without having earned any money. In response Galanz’s HR department has admitted that it rejected the man because he was found to be a dasanyang patient, meaning that the hepatitis virus was in active reproduction. Galanz, like many Chinese companies in Guangdong, has a policy of turning away dasanyang patients believing the disease could spread to others. However, research has shown that HBV cannot be spread through casual contact such as chatting, sharing a workstation or bathroom.

Following the Nokia lawsuit, and a report in the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News that Nokia had admitted it would not recruit people with HBV, support groups have swung into action. The Guangdong Association for the Study of Liver Diseases has launched a free service offering written testimonials to HBV carriers allowing them to prove they carry no risk to others. Additionally the man suing Nokia is expected to bring Nokia China to court as the second defendant in the case as well as the individual subsidiary. He is supported in his court action by Yirenping, a Chinese support group working to end discrimination against HBV and AIDS carriers. In its defence a Nokia China spokesman told the Yangcheng Evening News that Nokia would never discriminate against HBV carriers and has employees diagnosed with HBV at the factory. “We are investigating the Dongguan case and will rectify it if some of our staff have made mistakes,” the company said.