Those diseases classified as Class B, meanwhile, were a lot more active, with a total of 3,072,317 cases nationwide resulting in 24,980 deaths. The five most frequently occurring diseases in this category were viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, and scarlet fever. Among those, the actual killers were AIDS, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, rabies, and epidemic hemorrhagic fever account for 99.6 percent.
The fact that AIDS was the most deadly disease but did not appear in the top five most frequently occurring ailments does not speak well to the way it is being managed and treated in China. While once a diagnosis of AIDS was practically a death sentence for those that contracted it, in the past few decades, AIDS has become highly treatable the world over, thanks in large part to increased public awareness and fierce campaigning by LGBTQ groups and allies to destigmatize the disease and increase access to treatment for marginalized groups. In China, however, significant social, political, cultural barriers remain.
Coronavirus is now designated as a Class B disease in China, but despite reports of COVID-19 cases back in December, they do not seem to appear in the 2019 data. This could be due to the fact that the COVID-19 was not officially mapped and designated in China until Feb 8 of this year.
Some good news though: there were no reported cases of infectious atypical pneumonia, poliomyelitis, human infection with highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu), or diphtheria, which also appear in Class B.