Cheng Jinquan, president of the Shenzhen Municipal Hospital of
Epidemic Diseases (SMHED), says a new homosexual outpatient
department is being created to help prevent sexual transmission
diseases (STDs) and AIDS from spreading in the southern metropolis.
It will offer special medical service to the city's growing number
of homosexuals.
Shenzhen, which borders the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region, is now estimated to have about 100,000 homosexuals, the
highest number among the mainland's cities, and the figure is still
growing.
"If everything goes smoothly, the new outpatient department will
soon begin service," Cheng said on Wednesday.
Senior medical experts and doctors from abroad, mainly from
Britain, will be invited to work in the outpatient department,
which will be set up in SMHED.
The hospital is now involved in a joint medical project with the
British Royal Hospital in preventing and treating dermatosis and
STDs.
The project, called the Sino-Britain Service Center for STDs and
Dermatosis, officially opened its doors on Tuesday.
In addition to offering medical service to local outpatients,
the British experts and doctors will give lectures and exchange
views on preventing and treating STDs and dermatosis with local
counterparts.
"AIDS and STDs are actually threatening Shenzhen and even the
whole of Guangdong Province," Cheng said.
Guangdong is estimated to have had more than 30,000 AIDS
patients and HIV carriers at the end of last year.
Guangdong now comes the fourth in the country in diagnosed AIDS
patients and HIV carriers, following Yunnan, the Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Last year alone, 191 people were diagnosed with AIDS, Cheng
said.
In medical examinations of 120,000 pregnant women in Shenzhen
last year, 550 were diagnosed with syphilis, he added.
(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2004)