Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Sunday October 19, 2003
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who also chairs the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, added the fund could provide China a total of about $90 million over the next five years.
Beijing has faced widespread condemnation for disguising the scale of the AIDS epidemic, neglecting to treat patients properly and arresting activists. Rights groups and experts have warned the Global Fund will not be able ensure the aid is well-spent.
But Thompson, in Beijing ahead of the opening of a Global AIDS Program office, said he hoped the arrival of funding and U.S. health personnel would spur top leaders to confront the disease head-on.
"I would like to see the highest echelons of the Chinese government talk more about prevention of HIV/AIDS and containment," Thompson told reporters.
"We're going to see more information, hopefully, on this subject by the Chinese government," he said.
U.S. CDC director Julie Gerberding was to open the Global AIDS Program office on Monday and Thompson's department planned to appoint a full-time attach at the embassy in Beijing by January, he said.
"All of these things portend that there is going to be much more activity in this fight against AIDS here in China, which is absolutely necessary," Thompson said.
China says about one million people have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But some activists estimate one million people were infected in central Henan province alone by blood-selling schemes run by state-sponsored clinics.
The clinics paid farmers to extract their blood plasma, then pumped the unused components back into the donor from a pool tainted with the blood from other people.
They say similar practices also infected masses of people in six surrounding provinces.
Some observers say China's successful campaign to stamp out the flu-like SARS virus after months of covering it up showed
Beijing had the capacity mobilize against AIDS.
Some see signs Beijing is getting much more serious.
In July, China's Vice Premier and acting health minister, Wu Yi, held meetings to investigate the issue and the government began passing out free anti-retroviral drugs to farmers in about 50 counties ravaged by the blood scandals.
China applied for $98 million from the Global Fund in part to address a dearth of trained personnel, foreign aid workers say.
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