New survey tracks deadly virus ( 2003-12-01 07:47) (China Daily)
China has obtained its most accurate estimates yet
of the spread of HIV/AIDS across the country by adopting international survey
standards for the first time, according to health officials.
Hao Yang, division chief of the Disease Control Department of the Ministry of
Health, said 840,000 people in China were believed to have HIV/AIDS, including
80,000 with full-blown AIDS, based on a joint survey conducted by the Ministry
of Health, World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Using the WHO and UNAIDS survey approach, health authorities have sampled
100,000 people in seven groups, including high-risk populations such as drug
users, homosexuals, prostitutes, people selling blood on the black market, and
men with sexually-transmitted diseases.
The population estimate is extrapolated from the percentage of people
infected among those sampled in different groups.
It is the first time China has investigated the HIV/AIDS epidemic according
to international standards and methods, Hao said on the eve of World AIDS Day,
which falls today.
Health officials in China admit it is difficult to identify all HIV/AIDS
sufferers.
Experts once estimated one million Chinese people had contracted HIV/AIDS
between 1985 and June 2003.
But little more than 40,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers have officially registered
with health authorities.
And only 5,000 AIDS patients have been reached and given the anti-HIV
medicines provided by governments this year, according to Hao.
In another development, the Shanghai Health Administration said on Friday the
number of AIDS-infected people in the city this year rose slightly compared with
last year.
As of Wednesday last week, 170 people had been identified as infected by HIV,
up 6.25 per cent on last year's figure. Shanghai now has 886 AIDS-infected
people.
Vice-minister of Health Gao Qiang said in September that China will provide
free medicine to low-income HIV/AIDS sufferers and those in remote areas.
Last year, the central government began to invest about 122 million yuan
(US$14.8 million) annually in HIV/AIDS prevention and control. And total
spending across local governments is now 200 million yuan (US$24 million) a
year.
In China, an AIDS patient must pay about 4,000 yuan (US$482) a year to
receive basic treatment.
Ray Yip, director of the Global AIDS Programme in China for the Centre for
Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, told China Daily more
needed to be spent on HIV/AIDS treatment and education to persuade more
sufferers to seek help, limiting the spread of the disease.