China’s blood centers are to adopt a new test for the HIV virus to shorten the period during which it can escape detection in a newly infected donor.

Officials from the National Health and Family Planning Commission revealed the plan yesterday when asked at a press briefing in Beijing about a 5-year-old girl who contracted the virus during an operation when she was a baby.

The nucleic acid test, or NAT, can shorten the period, about 20 days using traditional methods, to just 10 days, commission spokesman Mao Quan’an told reporters.