The United Nations Fund for Population and Development recently conducted a survey of 2,000 migrant youths aged 14 to 25 in five Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Xiamen and Yancheng.

Only 12 percent were knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS; 72 percent had had unprotected sex in their first sexual encounter; and more than 40 percent did not want to share a telephone with an HIV-infected person.

Migrant youths are those most vulnerable to HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

"They face all kinds of temptations in the cities," says Zhang Lei, an HIV/AIDS specialist at UNICEF Office for China. "Their youth and inexperience keep them from acting rationally."

Statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) indicate that youth and migrant workers make up a large portion of 640,000 HIV cases nationwide.

"The situation will become nasty very soon if we do not work to prevent this social group from contracting HIV," warns Wei Nanfang from China CDC.

(China Daily October 23, 2008)