BEIJING, Aug 29 (AFP) - China's lawmakers have addressed the AIDS threat directly for the first time ever in a sign the government hopes to curb the disease before it becomes an epidemic, state media said Sunday.
Amendments to the law on infectious diseases urge officials at all levels to step up the control of AIDS and take measures to prevent the spread of the disease, the Xinhua news agency reported.
They were signed by President Hu Jintao after being passed by the national legislature over the weekend, according to the agency.
The amendments also emphasize the need to help areas that are too poor to fund a healthcare system that effectively prevents diseases and treats people already infected, the agency reported.
"Lack of adequate funds has undermined contagious disease prevention and control capabilities of organizations entrusted with the tasks," Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang was quoted as saying.
"Due to the lack of money, some patients could not receive timely, effective and formal treatment and became new sources of infection," he said, according to the agency.
The amended law also strengthens requirements imposed on blood donation centers following a series of scandals in recent years in which people were infected with HIV/AIDS after selling blood under highly unsanitary conditions.
The official number of HIV carriers in China is 840,000, a figure that has been left unchanged for nearly a year and has probably grown steeply since then.
State-run media have warned that unless China takes urgent action it could end up with 12 million HIV patients by 2010.
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