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Scheme seeks AIDS prevention
[China Daily 3 March 2004]
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-03/03/content_311132.htm
[Zhang Feng]
A global HIV/AIDS programme aimed at finding new strategies to prevent the spread
of the virus was officially launched yesterday in Beijing.
"
The major strategy of our programme is to prevent secondary generation
transmission of HIV from the existing carriers to more people," said
Ray Yip, director of the China Office of the Global AIDS Programme,
run by the US Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
However, in China, nearly 90 per cent of the officially estimated
840,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers are not identified, creating a great
barrier to prevent the spread of the virus, Yip said.
"
Without knowing where the majority of these people with HIV virus
are, how can we prevent them from infecting others or give them
care?" he
noted.
That's why identifying these unknown carriers has become a vital
factor in the country's fight against HIV/AIDS, he said during
the launching ceremony of China-US Co-operation on Prevention and
Care for HIV/AIDS Project, part of the Global AIDS Programme (GAP).
A total of 10 counties from Henan, the Tibet Autonomous Region
and other eight provinces and regions have been selected as the
first group of pilot sites.
And it will be done in these regions as a partnership with China
CARES, a national programme which lists 51 HIV/AIDS-stricken counties
as models in comprehensive care for HIV/AIDS sufferers.
The CDC will invest a total of US$15 million in China in the next
five years.
As a whole, the United States will donate US$35 million in the
following five years to HIV/AIDS control projects jointly sponsored
by the United States and China, Clark Randt, US ambassador to China,
said.
Besides financial support, the GAP project will also bring advanced
HIV/AIDS control strategies, especially in regard to preventing
secondary transmission, said Qi Xiaoqiu, director of the Disease
Control Department of the Ministry of Health.
One way to prevent the secondary transmission is to attract unidentified
HIV carriers to voluntarily seek consultations and tests, Yip said.
The project will add its efforts to the Chinese Government's in
providing comprehensive care - including free medical treatment
for HIV/AIDS sufferers in model counties.
Yip said providing comprehensive care is a basic way of encouraging
HIV carriers to come out for treatment without worrying about the
expense of medicines.
The Chinese central government promised last year to provide medical
treatment for poverty-stricken HIV/AIDS victims.
Meanwhile, the project will develop proper and effective working
methods in such areas as victims' privacy, psychological support
and human rights protection to dispel misgivings among HIV carriers
and attract them to receive tests.
Moreover, China should monitor and test people in high-risk groups,
including drug users, sex workers and people who have illegally
sold blood. Those groups make up the majority of the HIV/AIDS cases
in China, Yip added.
China still has a window opportunity to stop the rapid increase
rate of the virus, which is 32 per cent a year, if it can take
effective measures immediately to prevent the virus from spreading
to the general population from high-risk groups, Yip said.
(China Daily 03/03/2004 page2)
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