The Ministry of Health has pledged to do more to prevent mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and has issued a new set of guidelines for local governments and doctors.

Pilot projects are also being initiated in 127 counties to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and comprehensive care and treatment.

Of people with HIV/AIDS in China, 0.6 percent are babies who acquired the virus from their mothers, according to data collected from 194 surveillance sites. The government estimates that there are about 840,000 Chinese with HIV in total.

Without effective prevention measures the rate of mother-to-baby transmission is about 15 to 50 percent, but this can be significantly reduced with timely intervention. This can include drug therapies, risk-reducing delivery techniques and avoidance of breastfeeding.

The guidelines say that there should be better public education and health care in sample regions over the next two years, so that 90 percent of women there can be tested for the virus before they get married and have children.

According to Hao Yang, of the ministry’s HIV/AIDS control section, obligatory pre-marital testing stopped on October 1 and such testing has since been voluntary and free. The guidelines say that all test results should also be confidential.

The Ministry of Health has said that it aims to give 90 percent of children born to mothers with HIV/AIDS free drug therapies in their first two years, reducing the chance of them becoming HIV positive themselves.

Yunnan Province, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Henan Province in particular have seen a rapid increase of cases where mother-to-baby transmission is thought to have taken place.

Hao said that education remains a central task in a country where many people are still ignorant about what HIV/AIDS is and how to prevent its spread.

(China Daily November 9, 2001)