Advanced Search
Business | Metro | Nation | World | Sports | Features | Specials | Delta Stories
 
 
University drops plan to hand out condoms
25/11/2004 15:26

image

Students in Peking University are talking about the AIDS-prevention activity.

Elite Beijing University is calling off plans to hand out free condoms next week for World AIDS Day, saying it shouldn't be done so openly on campus.
The school was one of 34 Beijing universities where free condoms were to be handed out, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
But the university said it was "inappropriate to hand out free condoms openly on campus," especially as planned in front of its landmark auditorium, the report said.
"We should put more emphasis on guiding college students not to have pre-marriage sex. Condom use only serves as a secondary method for educating those who can't control themselves," the head of the university hospital, Zhou Baohua, was quoted as saying.
Instead, condoms will be placed in campus clinics where students can request them, Zhou said.
University officials said the condom distribution had not been approved by the university administration in a society where premarriage sex is frowned upon.
"College authorities might think the handout will stir up unnecessary disputes, as the campus is considered pure," said Dr Sun Peiyuan, one of the organizers of the event.
The United Nations has warned the number of AIDS victims in China could rise to 10 million by 2010 unless it takes serious steps to educate the public and fight the epidemic.
Sun said students with HIV had been found at Beijing's universities since 2000.
Beijing University was among the first Chinese universities to sell condoms from vending machines on campus.



 AP/Xinhua