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Guangxi Increases AIDS Awareness Among Youngsters
The China Red Cross Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional branch has been offering courses on safe sex in the region's colleges and universities to enhance AIDS awareness among young students.
Huang Yun, deputy director of the branch, explained that it is much easier to discuss sex and the ways to prevent the' spreading of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among youngsters.
In an effort to mark World AIDS Day 2000, which fell on December 1, groups of college students went to the streets of Nanning City, the regional capital, to spread information on AIDS prevention and give out brochures and condoms to passersby.
Sex has long remained a taboo subject in China and an overwhelming majority of the people are shy about talking about sex or their sex life openly.
Since the first AIDS case in China was reported in 1985, over 20,000 people had been reported as being HIV positive by the end of September this year and 397 AIDS patients have died, said sources from the Chinese Ministry of Health (MOH).
But the MOH estimates that the infection has in fact exceeded 400,000 people or even more. In Guangxi alone, for instance, the number of HIV carriers is estimated to have surpassed 50,000, most of whom are people aged between 20 and 40, said Huang.
Experts predict that if no preventative measures are taken, China will have over 10 million HIV carriers by the year 2010.
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