AIDS Victim on Way to U.S. From China in Military Jet

MANILA —  A U.S. military plane evacuated an American AIDS victim from southwestern China today and flew him to the Philippines, a U.S. Air Force spokeswoman said.

The C-9A aircraft carrying Brent Anderson, 38, landed at Clark Air Base after a flight from Kunming, Yunnan province. The plane was dispatched to China earlier today from Clark.

Base spokesman Maj. Thomas Boyd said Anderson will spend “a couple days in the hospital until his condition stabilizes for the long flight back” to the United States.

Anderson is to be flown to Travis Air Force Base in California and then to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, where his family will meet him.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Andy Koss said in Beijing that the military flight for Anderson will cost $40,000.

The family will be asked to deposit the money into an account for the State Department, which arranged for the flight.

Anderson, who works for a computer-related business in New York, was traveling in China as a tourist when he entered a hospital last month with a high fever and respiratory illness. Tests showed he had AIDS.

Commercial flights refused to carry him home because of restrictions on transporting patients with contagious diseases.