Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - December 28, 2005
The government will spend 800 million yuan ($99.10 million) on prevention work this year, but will almost double that in the next two years to 1.5 billion yuan in both 2006 and 2007, the official China Daily said.
In 2001, China spent just 100 million yuan, the newspaper said.
China has stepped up the fight against HIV-AIDS in recent years after initially being slow to acknowledge its threat, but public fear and ignorance make the battle an uphill one.
Even among better-educated urban dwellers, nearly 60 percent would be "nervous" to have contact with HIV positive people in public, Xinhua news agency has quoted a Health Ministry survey as saying.
China says it has 840,000 HIV carriers, but experts estimate a much higher figure, with perhaps one million people infected in the central province of Henan alone because of a botched blood-selling scheme in mid-1990s.
The government aims to keep the number of cases under 1.5 million by 2010, a number sharply lower than the World Health Organisation's projection of 10 million if nothing is done to prevent the disease's spread.
Over 80 percent of HIV positive people in China are aged between 20 and 39, the newspaper added. ($1=8.072 Yuan)
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