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Public Called to Bat in Fight vs. HIV/AIDS
The increasing number of sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV/AIDS cases in China demands urgent attention from the public, top health officials said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health revealed that by the end of last year, there were 22,517 reported HIV/AIDS cases in China.
The ministry estimates, however, that more than 600,000 people in China have been infected with HIV. The ministry said it believed the number of STD total cases has reached at least 4 million.
"The ministry's aim is to keep the number of HIV/AIDS cases stable at 1.5 million or lower by the year 2010. However, achieving that goal will require a society-wide effort now that the deadly disease has begun to spread at a faster speed," Yin Dakui, vice-minister of health, revealed.
Of registered HIV/AIDS victims, more than 70 per cent were infected through the injection of narcotics. Two-thirds are from rural areas and 87 per cent are young or middle-aged.
Apart from drug use, prostitution and contaminated blood transfusions are also major ways in which HIV spreads in China, according to Shen Jie, division chief of the ministry's Department of Disease Control.
Yin and Shen made their remarks at a symposium that was part of the EU-China Training Programme on HIV/AIDS and STD held yesterday in Beijing, which was co-sponsored by European Union and China.
The project has succeeded in training thousands of experts and providing substantial educational documentation that has been used throughout the country since 1994, European Union Ambassador to China Endymion Wilkinson noted at the symposium.
Training work and HIV education are mainly carried out in urban areas and regions where experimental prevention work has been carried out, Shen said.
Efforts must be made to further inform the 900 million farmers and transient labourers in urban and township areas about the dangers of HIV and the ways to prevent its spreading.
China has so far discovered 880 patients with full blown AIDS since 1985. Between 1985 and the present, 466 of those patients have died.
HIV can be transmitted through blood-to-blood contact, sexual intercourse and childbirth. After being infected, patients often develop AIDS, which severely reduces their ability to fight off disease.
There is currently no cure for the disease, so prevention has become the only effective way of fighting it.
The State Development Planning Commission has decided to invest 950 million yuan (US$114 million) in the establishment of blood donation and supply stations in central and western China in order to ensure people all over the country have access to safe blood.
The ministry also has plans to promote condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, Shen said.
Source: China Daily
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