Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 31, 2002
AIDS Impose Heaviest Burden on China
AIDS have been in the way to bring the Chinese society and families the heaviest burden than that of cerebral vascular diseases, malignant tumor, injury, pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), mental diseases, diabetes and viral hepatitis, as is known from a Sino-US seminar on infectious disease held May 29 in Beijing.
AIDS have been in the way to bring the Chinese society and families the heaviest burden than that of cerebral vascular diseases, malignant tumor, injury, pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), mental diseases, diabetes and viral hepatitis, as is known from a Sino-US seminar on infectious disease held May 29 in Beijing.
Families of most HIV carriers and patients can not afford the treatment though medicine prices have been slashed, said Lu Fan, deputy researcher with the China Prevention and Control Center for AIDS and VD.
According to China Youth Daily, China's HIV carriers have already reached 850,000.
Analysis on clinical data showed that Chinese people take a similar period of time with foreigners from catching HIV to becoming an AIDS patient, said Professor Caoyunzhen with the AIDS Prevention and Control Center under the Ministry of Health. After a few years of rapid growth, China has apparently seen more HIV/AIDS plagued areas and groups, and more and more carriers began to show symptom and become AIDS patients.
Meanwhile, experts estimated that China suffers at least a direct economic loss of 30-50 billion yuan caused by viral hepatitis each year.
The epidemic caused by AIDS, hepatitis B and tuberculosis has posed heavy burden to all countries.
To reduce the harm to the lowest level, the Chinese government has from this year listed hepatitis B vaccine into its vaccine plan and, at the same time, made all-side efforts to curb AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as a series of problems brought by double infection.