North China's
Tianjin Municipality is making HIV/AIDS prevention education
compulsory for students in high schools, vocational schools and
colleges.
Junior high-school students will have six lessons on AIDS
prevention education a year, senior high school students will have
four, vocational school students will have four to six and
university students will have two, according to the local education
and health bureaus.
Experts believe the lessons will help young students learn how
to protect themselves from AIDS as figures show they are becoming
more vulnerable to the deadly disease.
Statistics released late last year by the China Teenager and
Youth Research Center and the Central Committee of the Communist
Youth League indicate young people are under threat of contracting
the AIDS virus as the disease is spreading from the most at-risk
groups to the general population.
Condom vending machines will be installed in college hospitals
and HIV behaviour supervision sites will be set up on college
campuses. Schools libraries must stock various books on HIV/AIDS
prevention and posters are to be displayed around campuses.
Students with AIDS or from AIDS-struck poor families will have
their tuition fees reduced by half and students orphaned by AIDS
will have free schooling.
China has recently issued its first official guidelines on how
to prevent and control the spread of the AIDS virus, including
calling governments above county level to promote AIDS education in
high schools, vocational schools and colleges.
China's Ministry of Health said on February 21 that the country
reported 144, 089 HIV carriers by the end of 2005.
The latest assessment jointly issued by the ministry, the World
Health Organization and United Nations AIDS Program estimated there
are 650,000 HIV carriers, including 75,000 AIDS patients, in
China.
(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2006)