Over the six-year period of a Sino-British AIDS prevention
program at least 4,500 AIDS sufferers and those with HIV have been
treated and it has helped prevent an estimated 130,000 people from
contracting the illnesses in southwest China.
The program, which ended Tuesday, offered training and advice on
the use of protective measures to people susceptible to contracting
sexually transmitted diseases including drug addicts and sex
workers in the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan.
Approximately 1.28 million disposable syringes were distributed
in the 19.9 million UK pound program and 1.14 million used needles
were collected for safe disposal to assist prevent the spread of
AIDS among intravenous drug users.
The program involved government agencies, non-governmental
organizations as well as communities in protecting high-risk people
from HIV infection and AIDS, said Ole Hansen, an official at the
UNAIDS China Office. Hansen said the program's success in China
would provide valuable assistance to other countries in their AIDS
prevention work at grassroots and community levels.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the British Department for
International Development set up the AIDS prevention and treatment
cooperation program in 2000. It was carried out in 83 counties in
37 cities across Sichuan and Yunnan.
The Sino-British program provided medication and counseling to
4,531 AIDS patients and HIV sufferers in the two provinces, said
the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Thanks to
its intervention about 80 percent of the intravenous drug users in
Sichuan Province and 86 percent of those in Yunnan no longer share
syringes. Half of them were sharing in 2002, according to figures
provided by the Center.
Program volunteers have also taught sex workers to use condoms
to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases. Seventy
percent of female sex workers in Yunnan Province and 53 percent of
those in Sichuan have followed the advice of the volunteers, the
Center said.
The initiative has also helped dispel fear and discrimination of
AIDS and HIV carriers in Zizhong, a hinterland county of 1.32
million people in Sichuan. In total 109 people in Zizhong were
infected after selling blood to illegal dealers in 1995. The
locals, unaware of how the disease was spread, avoided going near
people who were infected.
"Young men in the village would always light a cigarette at the
very sight of me," said Li Bencai, a 37-year-old local HIV carrier,
"only to observe which way the wind was blowing so they could avoid
being down wind of me."
The isolation doubled his agony. Li said he had given up hope
until program volunteers came in 2001. "They told me to stop
agonizing and do something to promote AIDS prevention knowledge
among the villagers." Today Li runs a teahouse and a lumber plant
in his hometown.
The program has been successful thanks to the support of local
governments, volunteers and local health workers, said Adrian
Davis, from Britain's Department for International Development
(DFID) in China. The DFID was expected to spend an additional 30
million UK pounds over the next five years on new AIDS prevention
programs in China, he said without elaborating.
The Chinese Ministry of Health estimated in 2005 that the
country had approximately 650,000 HIV/AIDS cases which included
75,000 AIDS patients.
Among China's drug addicts 288,000 were found to be infected
with AIDS, said Zeng Yi, chief scientist with the STD
(sexually-transmitted diseases) and AIDS Prevention Center under
the Ministry of Health.
Yunnan, which borders southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, had
40,157 cases of HIV infection at the end of 2005.Sichuan reported a
total of 7,646 cases by June this year.
(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2006)