A majority of some 90 foreign firms in the country that took part in a three-month long survey were found to be practicing "some form of discrimination" against job candidates with hepatitis B, according to the result of poll released on Monday.

Between October and December, Beijing Yirenping Center, a non-profit group advocating social justice, telephoned 96 foreign firms across the country and found that "80 of them, or 84 percent, required job applicants to be tested for hepatitis B".

The survey found that 44 percent of companies polled would reject hepatitis B carriers.

China is estimated to have some 93 million hepatitis B carriers and the discrimination against this group has been there for decades in employment and education.

Lu Jun, a researcher involved in the poll, said most companies gave two reasons for turning down hepatitis B carriers - either they were "afraid that the carriers will spread the disease or that the carriers would not be able to handle the heavy workload".

Hepatitis B virus carriers "do not pose a threat to people around them or the environment", according to the official website of the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control. The virus can only be transmitted through sexual intercourse, blood-to-blood contact or from mother to child.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Ministry of Health had jointly launched a regulation in May 2007, prohibiting tests for hepatitis B during recruitment.

Li Fangping, a lawyer from the Beijing Ruifeng law firm, said the punishment for violators was too light.

"The regulation demands that companies pay only 1,000 yuan at most for wanting candidates to undergo the tests. So far, I have not heard of even one company being fined for it," he said.

(China Daily February 24, 2009)