China will launch a nationwide education campaign among its 120 million migrant workers to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and urge them to protect themselves.
The State Council, the Ministry of Health and other government departments yesterday initiated an anti-AIDS program to start in December.
The nation is estimated to have at least 840,000 known HIV infections.
Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said on Monday that migrant workers are a high-risk HIV/AIDS group, and urged governments to pay more attention to them.
He criticized many local governments for providing HIV/AIDS prevention services only to people with residential registration.
The migrants' program will aim to ensure that at least 65 percent of migrant workers have access to HIV/AIDS knowledge by the end of 2006 and 85 percent by the end of 2010.
China has had 120 million rural laborers working in urban areas, and a large number of the surplus rural labor force will flow into cities and towns. Most of them are sexually active, and some of them are prone to drug addiction in some areas. But they have a poor understanding of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS.
(Xinhua)