BEIJING, Dec 27 (AFP) - In a fresh sign that Chinese government attitudes are becoming more open, locally-produced drugs to treat AIDS patients will be on the market in January, official media said Friday.
But the government admitted the fight against the disease would be a "long-term, arduous and complicated task."
In announcing the move, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang acknowledged that the epidemic was threatening China's social stability and economic development in the worst affected areas.
He said the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through illegal blood plasma collection in the early 1990s, mainly for the production of biomedical products, had affected 23 Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.
The provinces of Henan, Anhui, Hebei and Hubei in central China were suffering the most serious consequences.
In some villages up to 60 percent of plasma sellers have been infected by the virus because of unhygienic practices during the collections, some of which were condoned by the government, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Zhang also announced new subsidies to help combat the rapidly spiralling crisis, but they only amounted to 22 million yuan (2.7 million US dollars) annually for two years.
On the same day Beijing said it would pump 50 billion yuan (6.0 billion US) into conserving its ecosystems over the next two years.
Another 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion US) alone would be used to improve databases recording the nation's biological diversity, the China Daily said.
Zhang however stressed that the government had taken effective measures to block HIV transmission, such as banning the illegal plasma trade and adding standard blood banks for donors.
China invested 2.25 billion yuan (272 million dollars) last year to establish or upgrade 459 blood banks in the central and western regions.
And he said the locally produced drugs would be available for one-tenth of the price of imported drugs, according to Xinhua.
AIDS drugs from overseas cost around 30,000 yuan (3,600 US) a year to treat a single person -- money that the vast majority of China's one million-plus sufferers cannot afford, nearly 80 percent of whom live in the countryside.
"Domestic production of four kinds of anti-AIDS drugs has been achieved so far," Zhang told a meeting of China's highest legislators who are reviewing reform of the health care system.
The world's most populous country denied for years that it had an AIDS problem, but more recently has admitted the situation needs addressing amid warnings that an epidemic could jeopardise its booming economic growth.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned that China faces an "AIDS nightmare" and has about three years to contain the spread of a disease which official estimates suggest is increasing by 30 percent per year.
While China has acknowledged one million cases of AIDS and HIV, up from 600,000 last year, the UN has suggested it is closer to 1.5 million and could soar to more than 10 million by the end of the decade.
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