Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said in Beijing Wednesday that checking drug use is a "fundamental" way to prevent HIV virus from spreading in China as injection drug use is a major channel for the virus to catch on.

At the Beijing+10 meeting to mark the Fourth World Conference on Women, Wang said HIV virus transmitted through injection drug use is especially serious in regions or provinces such as Xinjiang, Yunnan and Sichuan.

Many HIV-infected drug users fail to follow medical treatment as required when getting addicted, leading to more infected cases.

In combating drug use, Wang said, women should be educated to help husbands or children stay away from drugs. More importantly, all schools, primary and secondary schools in particular, should educate students on the harms of drugs.

"Anti-drug materials should be used as textbooks and listed as one course for exams," he said.

Official statistics show that by the end of 2004, the number of Chinese drug users reached 791,000, 6.8 percent higher than 2003. Among 89,067 reported HIV-infected cases, 41.3 percent people were drug users.

China had 840,000 people infected with HIV at the end of 2003 and experts predict that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in China could exceed 10 million by 2010 if no strong measures are taken.

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2005)