The “HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Regulations” announced by Xinhua Net on Feb. 12 defined China’s efforts to launch drug maintenance treatment among drug users.

The regulations asks each province, autonomous region, directly governed city region’s government health ministry, police department and drug monitoring agencies to coordinate accordingly, based on the HIV/AIDS prevalence and status of drug users of each administrative district, to proactively launch drug preservation treatment, and to implement other planned interventions.

The regulations specifically indicates that it authorizes health agencies set up for drug treatment to select suitable drugs to conduct treatment, to reduce addiction to illegal drugs, to reduce the risk and spread of HIV through injection drug use, to reduce the risk of diseases, deaths and crimes related to drug abuse. Most importantly is to target measures of reducing injection drug use spreading HIV through methadone replacement therapy. According to resources provided by the ministry of health, the ministry of health, ministry of public security and other ministries will in 2005 collaborate to open 128 methadone clinics and 91 clean needle exchange sites.

The regulations stipulates that at and above the county level, governments should establish HIV/AIDS prevention and drug treatment related coordinating mechanism, to organize relevant departments to implement measures of HIV/AIDS prevention targeting drug users.

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