Reporter:

A force of life, pregnancy is sadly one of the three major ways to transmit HIV/AIDS. A pregnant woman can easily pass on the virus to her child if she doesn’t take the proper precautions. But if an infected mother is willing to take the treatments , the chances she might infect her unborn child can be lowered to below 10%.

Mrs. Hu is a farmer living in Kaiyuan of Yunnan province in southwest China. She was tested HIV positive 3 years ago in a regular medical check-up before she gave birth to her child. Her doctor told her how she could get free treatment from the government to possibly prevent transmission of the virus to her baby. Given the alternative, she decided to accept the offer. And now, her child is healthy and already two years old.

In areas highly-affected by the virus, like Kaiyuan, one in a hundred pregnant women is HIV positive. Mrs. Hu is just one of the many HIV-positive mothers who have benefited from the government’s free medial service. Starting in 2003, the program now covers 271 counties and cities across the nation.

Professor Su Suiqing, of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told us why she thinks this project is important.

“According to the World Health Organization, 800 thousand children across the world are born HIV positive each year. Reports also say that so far there have been 9000 mother-to-baby HIV transmission cases in China.”

Su also noted the public services now offered by the Chinese government to prevent such HIV transmission. These include: giving guidance and HIV/AIDS tests to mothers, offering anti-virus medications, taking protective action during delivery, and providing milk powder and HIV check-ups for babies. And all these services are free.

Yang Qing, an official with the Ministry of Health, told us in a meeting held in Yunnan province Wednesday July 5th, that China has invested 40 million yuan, or 5 million USD in the project.

“The ‘China Containment and AIDS Action Plan’ proposes that by 2010 our work to prevent mother-to-baby HIV/AIDS transmissions should cover 90% of all counties in China. In order to achieve this goal, there is still a lot more to do.”

It’s said that the Ministry of Health is now working on new guidelines for issues like staff training and the allocation of funds, in accordance with the project.

Na Lan , CRI news.