CHINA: China Looks to Cabbage in Massive Condoms Drive

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

CHINA: China Looks to Cabbage in Massive Condoms Drive

Agence France Presse (09.14.05) - Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Chinese officials seeking to fight HIV are looking to make accessing condoms as common as buying cabbage. "If people could get a condom as conveniently and naturally as buying a Chinese cabbage, the AIDS prevention function carried out by condoms could finally imbue people's lives and change their bias [against condoms]," said Tao Ran of the China Youth HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Fund.

On Tuesday, the government signed an agreement with Gaobang Latex Products Manufacturing Company for 305 million condoms, Xinhua News Agency reported today. Bought through a special HIV/AIDS fund, the condoms will be disbursed by local infectious-disease control centers to hotels and entertainment venues. Already, 42 hotels in the provincial capital of Guilin have received condoms, Xinhua noted.

Of China's official statistics showing 840,000 living with HIV/AIDS, 30 percent were infected through unsafe sex - a proportion that is steadily rising. Forty-five percent acquired HIV through intravenous drug use, and 25 percent became infected through contaminated blood transfusions.

Health officials are calling for 100-percent condom use programs, like those in Hubei, Yunnan, and Jiangsu provinces, elsewhere in China. Xinhua said such programs, which use "no condom, no sex" as their slogan, are expected to be implemented across China soon.
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