Officials to aid AIDS battle in Henan

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 19, 2004

Officials to aid AIDS battle in Henan

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A group of 76 government officials from central Henan province waved good-bye to their families Wednesday morning and set out on a one-year mission to help improve AIDS control and treatment work in the most seriouslyaffected villages.

They will team up with local officials to fan out in 38 most affected villages that belong to 13 counties in six cities -- including Wenlou village of Shangcai county, which has AIDS patients in nearly every household and has hit headlines of worldwide media in recent years.

These officials are expected to supervise village authorities to offer free medical treatment to AIDS carriers, free and anonymous HIV/AIDS tests, free education for orphans of AIDS carriers and to take care of the elderly who have lost children toAIDS.

They would also help the villagers build basic infrastructure, including one paved road, a well, a school, a clinic and an orphanage and elderly home in each village. The provincial government has earmarked over 30 million yuan (3.6 million US dollars) to finance building of the facilities, said Vice GovernorWang Jumei.

Most of the resident officials are promising young or middle-aged civil servants from the provincial government, including health, finance and publicity departments.

"They have been selected to carry out the special mission because their organizations are capable of helping villagers resolve varied problems in life and agricultural production," saidMa Jianzhong, director of the provincial health department. "But more importantly, these officials are supposed to encourage the AIDS patients to their build up confidence and stand up on their own feet again."

To that effect, the officials are expected to live and dine with the village folks and share their weal and woe as well as their innermost sentiments.

More than 4,300 AIDS patients in Henan province received free medication last year and were getting increasingly better, Ma said."Most of them are able to take up simple work."

To finance their treatment the provincial government spent nearly 40 million yuan (4.8 million US dollars) in 2003.

Henan, China's most populous and a largely agricultural centralprovince, reported nearly 93 million people at the 2000 national census. It became a site of the country's worst AIDS outbreaks when a large number of needy peasant farmers were infected after selling blood to illegal dealers and having HIV-infected blood pumped back into them, before 1995.

Official statistics show 11,844 people have been confirmed HIV-positive in the province and 2,026 children have been orphaned. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

In the framework of a coordinate meeting mechanism set up last June, the Henan provincial government had pinpointed procedures for containing the spread of the disease and outlined job descriptions for local governments down to the village level, saidVice Governor Wang Jumei.

According to Wang, the resident officials are asked to oversee on behalf of the provincial government the AIDS control and prevention work being done in these villages, and they have all undergone training on the HIV/AIDS outbreak in the province and the world as well as how to protect themselves from being infected.

The provincial health department has worked out contingency measures to ensure earlier detection and timely treatment to possible HIV infection among the officials.

If necessary, a new group of officials may be stationed to replace them at the end of the preset one-year term, said Wang.

According to the Ministry of Health, China currently has about 840,000 HIV-positive people and approximately 80,000 AIDS patients.

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