Vice-Premier Wu Yi said Thursday that the country has entered a crucial time for AIDS prevention and urged everyone to work to stop the spread of the disease.

Attending a red ribbon -- the Chinese symbol of AIDS prevention-- distribution activity, initiated by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, Wu said the spread of HIV/AIDS has brought severe threats to China's economy and society. The AIDS prevention work is of vital importance to the country's economic development, social stability, national security and the fulfillment of the goal of building a well-off society.

Wu said the country's trade unions at all levels had made great efforts in leading workers to prevent HIV/AIDS during the past years and their efforts should be continued.

China's fight against AIDS/HIV has lasted 19 years, since the first HIV infectious case was discovered in 1985.

The assessment report on China's AIDS prevention and control, released by the Ministry of Health, shows HIV is an epidemic covering all the mainland's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. There are 840,000 HIV-carriers, of whom 80,000 suffer AIDS.

The majority of Chinese HIV carriers have been infected through blood transfusions. However, the ratio of sexual infections increased from 5.5 percent in 1997 to 10.9 percent in 2002 and more Chinese infants have been directly infected by their mothers.

The number of HIV carriers has rapidly increased, and the virus has been epidemic not only among high-risk groups like drug abusers and sex workers, but also among average people.

Experts warned that more than 10 million Chinese will be HIV-positive in 2010, unless effective counter-measures are taken.

In December 2003, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao shook hands and spoke to AIDS patients in Beijing in a bid to eliminate social discrimination against the HIV positive.

AIDS vaccine tested on humans

China-developed AIDS vaccine won government approval to be tested by human bodies Thursday, according to the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) of China.

The compound vaccine consists of DNA vaccine and regrouped virus carrier, said sources with the SFDA.

Chinese scientists began the research by studying domestically popular virus genes in 1996, including the envelope albumen and core albumen of the virus. They found that human body will become immune to AIDS virus after injecting DNA vaccine and regrouped virus carrier in succession.

Researchers attacked a monkey with AIDS virus after injecting the compound vaccine into its body, and found no abnormal reactions occurred.

Human body test, or stage I clinical test, of the compound AIDS vaccine aims to further assess the security of the vaccine, an SFDA official said.

The government will consider whether to launch stage II and stage III tests on the basis of the result of the stage I test.

SFDA officials said that they would accelerate approval process of all kinds of anti-AIDS drugs to help speed up relevant clinical researches.

According to experts, AIDS vaccine is the only solution to stop the wildfire spread of the grievous infectious disease. Currently, even the "cocktail treatment", the most effective measure to deal with AIDS so far, can only stabilize or ease the AIDS symptoms instead of killing the virus in the body.

(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2004)