Big funds for AIDS prevention
28/12/2005 8:54
China plans to spend 3.86 billion yuan (US$476 million) on AIDS/HIV
prevention and control efforts over the next three years.
The central
government emphasizes HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and financial support is
rising, according to a report on Chinese youth development from 1998 to
2004.
Concerning the overall AIDS situation, the youth report said the state
spent 1.2 billion yuan on HIV/AIDS prevention and control between 2003 and 2004,
compared with 100 million yuan in 2001.
By late 2004, China had about 840,000
HIV carriers.
Of the reported HIV carriers, 82 percent were aged 20 to 39,
and 7.4 percent were under 19, authorities said.
The document was published
by China Youth and Children's Research Center and the China Communist Youth
League.
Meantime, a Beijing conference reported that China has so far built
128 methadone clinics since February 2003, when the country began to embrace
community-based centers offering methadone to heroin addicts.
Of the total,
29 are in southwest China's Yunnan, a province that shares border with Vietnam,
Laos and Myanmar, according to the ongoing meeting. Injecting narcotics is a
major way of spreading HIV and China hopes methadone substitution will reduce
needle use and AIDS.
China has built 127 anti-AIDS demonstration
zones.
All provinces have stepped up efforts to publicize information about
puberty, sex, blood donations and sales and sexually transmitted
diseases.
Xinhua News
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