The Ministry of Public Health launched a major health education campaign this month to standardize the country's treatment of venereal diseases. The ministry has already allocated 3 million yuan for the project.

The money will be used to sponsor training classes for doctors throughout the country, establish clinics, crack down on illegal clinics, spread information of reproductive health, and find effective ways to check the spread of the venereal disease. China now has over 7 million people diagnosed with VD, placing the disease third highest on the list of infectious diseases in the country.

In the Chinese capital, more than 444 HIV cases had been reported by the end of 1999. Since the 1990s, the number of people infected with venereal diseases in the city has been increasing at a yearly rate of between 20 and 40 percent.