Related Topic: Nation launches anti-AIDS campaign

China's Health Minister pledged yesterday to keep the number of people infected with AIDS in the country below 1.5 million through 2010.
Of about 2 million people who were screened for HIV and AIDS in the country this year, more than 40,000 tested positive. Many of them were paid blood donors, drug addicts, and prostitutes.
China is working with the World Health Organization and the United Nations to study just how widespread the disease is in the country, Health Minister Gao Qiang told a press conference in Beijing yesterday.
"The assessment will reflect China's AIDS situation in a more objective and accurate way," he said. "We'll publicize the results in time."
Preventing the spread of AIDS is important to economic development and social stability, Gao said.
"It may also impact the rise and fall of China," he said.
"Governments should organize all departments and mobilize every segment of society to hold back the spread of AIDS," he said.
China had 247 state-level AIDS monitoring sites in late 2004, up from 194 at the end of 2003.
The country has also set up 2,686 teams to prevent the spread of the disease among high-risk people.
The State Council, China's highest governing body, has told government leaders at different levels to take direct charge of AIDS prevention work.
"Those who try to cover up the epidemic or are derelict in their duties will be held liable," Gao said.
The Chinese government allocated 800 million yuan (US$99 million) for AIDS prevention and treatment work in 2005, up from just 100 million yuan in 2002.
Most of the money will be used for AIDS testing, education, treatment of AIDS patients and efforts to prevent the disease spreading among high-risk people, Gao said.
China will also launch an education program for millions of migrant workers living in large cities today.
Also yesterday, the vice president of the Academy of Military Medical Science announced it has developed China's first AIDS drug that isn't based on foreign intellectual property.
The new drug, Dicaffeoyqunic Acid Tablets, marks a major breakthrough in China's development of AIDS medications and has outperformed cocktail therapy in experiments on monkeys, said academy vice president He Fuchu, at a news briefing in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
The drug has been approved by the State Food and Drug Administration to go into clinical tests on humans after passing tests on animals, He said.
(Xinhua)