Minister Call for Immediate HIV/AIDS Action in China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 04, 2002

Minister Call for Immediate HIV/AIDS Action in China

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China welcomes international co-operation in the research and training of health workers in a bid to prevent and control HIV/AIDS, a deadly disease that is at a critical epidemic level in the world's most populous country, a top health official said recently.

Health Minister Zhang Wenkang said prevention efforts China is making continue to lag behind the rapidly increasing demand of treatment for the disease.

"We are especially in urgent need of professionals involved with disease control,'' Zhang said at the weekend during the Sino-US Conference on Research and Training in AIDS-related Areas.

"China is at a critical time in HIV/AIDS control since the disease is spreading very rapidly from those with high-risk behaviors to the common people.''

Statistics from the Ministry of Health show 1 million Chinese people have been infected by HIV, the AIDS virus, since it was first detected in the country in 1985.

"The infection figure could expand to 10 million by the year 2010 if we fail to take immediate action to control it,'' Zhang said. "We now have no time to loss.''

More than 300 officials and experts from China, the United States, the United Nations and other international communities attended the conference, which ended yesterday in Beijing.

Dozens of top HIV/AIDS experts presented lectures on prevention and treatment to medical professionals from throughout China, such as Yunnan Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which has the largest number of HIV victims in the country.

Zhang said Sino-US co-operation in AIDS-related areas would enormously benefit not only the Chinese people but also global campaigns against HIV/AIDS.

US Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt Jr. said HIV/AIDS was a global problem requiring global solutions.

Sino-US co-operation against AIDS increased last June as Zhang and his US counterpart, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

One of the results of the memorandum was a five-year grant of US$14.8 million for China to participate in the Comprehensive International Programme for Research on AIDS (CIPRA), initiated and sponsored by the US National Institute of Health (NIH), to support international research on practical and affordable methods for preventing and treating HIV/AIDS.

Undertaken by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the China CIPRA will focus on studies of HIV's epidemiologic and transmission factors, behavioral intervention, pathogenesis of the virus and the clinical study and development of new AIDS vaccines.

China CIPRA will collaborate with the other ongoing NIH-sponsored HIV/AIDS programmes in China, such as the HIV prevention trials network, HIV vaccine trials network and international training and research programmes.

China has issued an Action Plan for Reducing and Preventing the Spread of HIV/AIDS from 2001 to 2005 -- the number of HIV infections increased by 53 per cent from 2000 to 2001 and its annual growth now outstrips that figure.

Experts say drug users are the main victims of HIV/AIDS, in addition to people contracting it through sexual encounters and blood transfusions.

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