After a decade of inaction, the government of Jieyang, a city in the northeastern part Guangdong Province, has finally tracked down the gangs that have been organizing the homeless and unemployed into a blood-selling racket.

The move came in response to a report in the Guangzhou-based Information Times on Wednesday that exposed the gangs' activities.

The paper reported that the gangs had organized hundreds of "professional" blood donors in two urban villages in Jieyang, and that some of the blood gangs had been in the trade for 20 years.

Under orders from the gang leaders, some donors have been selling their blood in 400-milliliter quantities up to 15 or 16 times in a single month, the report said. Some villagers had been engaged in the trade for 16 years.

The gangs then sold the ill-gotten blood in several cities in Guangdong, including Chaozhou, Shanwei, Heyuan and Huizhou.

Prodded by the newspaper report, the local public security bureau on Wednesday night dispatched 100 police officers to the two villages mentioned in the article. The raid netted a gang leader and five blood donors.

The provincial health department sent an investigation team led by deputy director Liao Xinbo to Jieyang on Thursday morning to assess the situation.

Some media reports have said investigators from the Ministry of Health were also on hand in Jieyang on Thursday.

To ensure a regular supply of blood, the local government urged government officials, public servants and medical staff to donate blood.

The raid comes as the latest strike in an ongoing struggle against the illegal blood trade. The lid was pulled back on this unseemly business after it emerged that entire villages in Central China's Henan Province had been infected with HIV after receiving tainted batches of blood.

"The 'blood selling tribes' in Jieyang have not triggered a community disaster like the AIDS villages in Henan. Let's just say that Guangdong is lucky," said a commentary on phoenixtv.com. "The authorities in Guangdong really had no idea what was going on before it was exposed by the media? If all the people working at the homeless shelters, blood collecting stations, public security departments and health departments had been doing their jobs, these 'blood selling tribes' would not have been around for more than 20 years," said the commentary.

According to the Blood Donation Law, which came into force on October 1, 1998, healthy citizens between the ages of 18 and 55 are able to donate blood voluntarily. The law also stipulates that donors are not allowed to give more than 400 milliliters of blood per time and must wait at least six months before making donations.

However, people in northeastern Guangdong are reluctant to donate blood. It is believed that doing so robs people of their vitality. This situation has provided fertile soil in which the blood gangs could ply their trade, keeping local blood banks full and meeting hospitals' demands.

(China Daily April 7, 2007)