People’s Daily Online, WUHAN – The Hubei provincial government held an AIDS prevention and control meeting yesterday, and relayed the spirit of the first meeting of the State Council Working Group on HIV/AIDS. The meeting heard about the HIV/AIDS situation in the entire province, and drew up a plan to fully implement this year’s HIV/AIDS control work. The meeting stressed the need to strengthen 8 measures and firmly control the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Provincial Party Secretary and vice-governor Zhou Jianwei attended and spoke at the meeting.

Zhou Jianwei pointed out that in order to ensure that AIDS prevention and control work goals are realized, more efforts must be made at publicity [ed. “xuanchuan”] and a supporting social environment must be created. He said that AIDS prevention and control work must be included in the realm of important government work, and targets must be met. This year, the following measures will be strengthened:

1. Before the end of March, the province will form 10 expert working groups, city levels will form 13 leader groups, and county levels will form 27 work brigades to live in villages to organize and implement relief and assistance work.

2. Actively work to help those with AIDS, form technical guidance groups, designate hospitals for AIDS care, provide anti-viral treatment for people with AIDS, and provide treatment for opportunistic infections for those infected with HIV.

3. Stop mother-to-child transmission [or HIV] and provide free HIV testing to pregnant women.

4. Wipe out medically based transmission, spread province-wide use of single-use medical clamps, implements and needles for injection

5. Manage HIV-positive people according to law, those HIV-positive people who intentionally spread the virus with ill intent and hold them legally responsible and punished criminally.

6. Implement poverty assistance policies, including those HIV-infected people in rural areas in the category of “special poverty assistance”, make regular uniform visits to offer assistance. Anti-viral treatment for those urban residents should be included in the category of employee’s basic health coverage, and treatment should be free for rural residents and impoverished urban residents, and either free or reduced for those urban residents in economic difficulties (according to their need). Children with HIV and those orphaned [after their parents die of AIDS] should be given free education, and those who meet the requirements for high school and college should be given financial assistance. AIDS orphans should be given financial assistance, with monthly living allowance and other assistance as appropriate. Government departments should offer financial assistance as appropriate, and create children’s welfare groups, and help AIDS orphans settle down when they grow up by allowing them to join “Wubao” [ed, a social insurance plan?]. For those with HIV or AIDS who have productive capacities, township (or town) governments should assist them in obtaining necessary permission and support them in finding self-sustaining employment. Those with HIV or AIDS who return to rural areas and receiving treatment and prevention services should be given employment opportunities by township (or town) governments. For those who contracted HIV through blood transfusions, financial assistance will be given by special foundations established by county (city) governments. Special financial allowances will be given to basic-level medical staff who come in direct contact with people with HIV/AIDS.

7. High-risk behavioral interventions; 100% condom use programs in entertainment centers [ed, among sex workers] in 48 epidemic-affected cities and counties, expanding to the entire province next year.

8. Increase expenditure and ensure sufficient support for the work to be carried out. This year, the provincial finance department will massively increase funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and each local areas, especially those heavily affected by the epidemic, will also increase their investment, to be included in government budget planning, to ensure there is sufficient funding for the HIV/AIDS work.

Zhou Jianwei stressed that AIDS is a global public health and social problem, and a key disease that China must control. In the face of the serious and rapid spread of the epidemic, each level of the provincial government and each office in the government must maintain extreme vigilance, understand the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic, increase their sense of responsibility and sense of urgency in AIDS control work. It is necessary to implement the important theory of “three represents”, with the spirit of responsibility for the people and Party, to control and prevent AIDS in the same way as SARS was controlled. It is necessary to unify the thinking of the masses and officials using advanced science, to take a realistic working attitude, to further increase the level of effort, to make determined efforts to stem the spread of the AIDS epidemic in the province. He stressed the heavy responsibility in AIDS prevention and control work. As long as each level of the government places emphasis on this work, he said, and different departments coordinate with each other and the society participates, Hubei province will succeed in reaching its target of AIDS prevention and control work.

The working meeting also confirmed the key points in Hubei province’s AIDS control work: Stop continued medical transmission of HIV, eliminate mother-to-child transmission, and control sexual transmission. 200,000 high-risk people will be tested for HIV; All HIV-positive people will be provided with anti-viral treatment, and HIV-positive people will be given free treatment for opportunistic infections; Rural residents with HIV and poor urban residents will be given free anti-viral treatment; those households in financial difficultities and all AIDS orphans, and elderly whose families have died of AIDS, will be given financial relief.