Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Monday November 4, 2002
Prevention efforts in China are lagging behind soaring demand for AIDS treatment, the newspaper quoted Health Minister Zhang Wenkang as telling a Sino-US AIDS conference.
"China is at a critical time in HIV/AIDS control since the disease is spreading very rapidly from those with high-risk behaviors to the common people," he said during the weekend meeting.
"We are especially in urgent need of professionals involved with disease control."
Statistics from the ministry show about one million Chinese have been infected with HIV since it was first detected in the country in 1985, the newspaper said.
"The infectious figure could expand to ten million by the year 2010 if we fail to take immediate action," the paper quoted Zhang as saying. "We now have no time to lose."
More than 300 experts from China, the United States and the United Nations attended the conference in Beijing, it said.
US Ambassador Clark Randt was quoted as saying AIDS, which has afflicted about 60 million people since it first surfaced about 20 years ago, was a global problem needing global solutions.
The United States agreed in June to give China $14.8 million over five years for AIDS-related research.
The United Nations says China has between 800,000 and 1.5 million people infected with HIV and about 30,000 have died from the disease.
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