CRI NEWS

China Promotes AIDS Education before World AIDS Day

2004-11-28 19:38:39 CRIENGLISH.com

China is preparing to mark World AIDS-Day---this Wednesday---with a major publicity drive in central Beijing. With condoms and leaflets on AIDS Prevention distributed freely, the country is determined to launch a national campaign against the disease and call for more public awareness of the epidemic. CRI's reporter Li Gang has the story:

Three days before the United Nations World AIDS day on December 1st, various activities were held in Beijing. Hundreds of volunteers took part in a race around Beijing to highlight the message of AIDS awareness among the public. Every participant had a red scarf on their chest to show their support. In downtown Beijing's Xidan area, free leaflets on AIDS prevention and education were handed out to passers-by. Li Dan is an AIDS activist. He remind us one serious problem on AIDS prevention: blood sales.

"In China, the main channel for spreading AIDS is blood sales. Millions of people have been infected with AIDS out of blood sales. Blood sales are still going on and many blood stations are still carrying on illegal blood business. The growth of blood sales is extremely dangerous."

On Friday, state media announced that China had approved human testing of a domestically developed AIDS vaccine and pledged to speed up approvals of new drugs to fight the disease.

But public knowledge of AIDS still seems quite weak. A survey conducted by the Ministry shows most Chinese people have only a superficial understanding or misunderstanding about AIDS. Many people can identify how the AIDS virus is transmitted, but they often don't understand how to prevent infection---the problem is especially critical in rural areas.

China reported about 840-thousand HIV cases in 2003- three times more than the figure in 2001. As Henk Bekedam, World Health Organization's Representative in China says a more stronger government commitment is urgent need to fight the disease.

"Because we are talking about a disease which is associated wrongly only with sex workers, with people who are injecting themselves with drugs, men having sex with men. And I think because you are talking about a marginalized groups, and if you don't deal with them, and if you don't give them right support now, then it will be spreading. That's the reason why you need political commitment at each level in the society."

In recent years, China has put more and more efforts in fighting against the disease in the country and raise public awareness on that.

Li Gang, CRI news.

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