Beijing has formally put AIDS prevention programs for adolescents into practice on Tuesday. Students will be given yearly classes on how to prevent HIV/AIDS, the Beijing Morning Post reports on Wednesday.

 

The Beijing Education Commission requests that, in an academic year, middle schools (junior high school) should establish special AIDS prevention courses totaling no less than six hours, and high schools no less than four hours, while universities and colleges should add at least one hour of AIDS-related lectures to health education programs.

 

According to the World Health Organization, up to 40% of all new AIDS patients and HIV infections this year are among adolescents, so they have become an important target audience for AIDS prevention work.

 

As a result, Beijing municipal departments started this school-based program in order to popularize AIDS knowledge, actively develop integrated AIDS prevention and treatment for children and adolescents, help adolescents raise their level of self-protection consciousness, and eliminate bias and prejudice.

 

By the end of June this year, there were 3142 AIDS patients and HIV carriers in Beijing, 313 of which are new cases this year.

 

(CRI December 6, 2006)