With unprecedented frankness China's top health officials have acknowledged that the world's most populous country faces an HIV and AIDS crisis, and they have vowed to bring new resources to bear in their campaign to limit the spread of the virus.
China's vice minister of health, Yin Dakui, presented alarming data at a Beijing press conference last month indicating that rates of HIV infection are far higher than previously reported, and also that increased percentages of specific groups, such as drug misusers, are now testing positive.
“Like many other countries, we are facing a very serious epidemic of HIV and AIDS,” Mr Yin said as he announced that reported infections of HIV in the first six months of 2001 were 67.4% higher than in the same period last year.
By the end of 2000, Mr Yin said, China had 600000 people infected with HIV. But he also predicted that China would manage to hold the number below 1.5 million through to 2010.
According to a report issued by the US embassy in Beijing, the rapid rise in the reported rate of infections is due to increased testing for the virus when people fall ill, and the actual rise in total infections is likely to be just over 30%.
Earlier this year a report by the United Nations AIDS office estimated that there were more than one million with HIV infection in China at the end of 2000 and warned that by the year 2010 the number could rise to 20 million.
During his press conference Mr Yin also acknowledged serious lapses in the government's work on HIV and AIDS, particularly in its efforts at public education and its management of the blood supply.
Mr Yin said that between 30000 and 50000 people had been infected while selling blood through poorly managed collection operations, where reused and unsterilised equipment is common.
He also outlined the risks to recipients of blood products, saying that in China's highest risk areas nearly four in 10000 transfusions carry a risk of transmitting AIDS.
“We have not effectively controlled the epidemic,” he acknowledged, adding that much of the blame lay with local officials in rural parts of the country.
According to China's five year action plan for AIDS, by 2005 the rate of infection from clinical blood transfusions should be brought down to one in 100000 or less nationwide and to one in 10000 in regions with a high incidence of HIV infection. By the same year the overall annual rate of increase in the number of people infected with HIV should be reduced to 10% or less.
The health ministry has authorised 200 million yuan (£16.4m; $23m) in new spending to meet its goals. Specific initiatives will include improvement of standards and compliance throughout the blood and plasma collection system; establishment of preventive and therapeutic health services; and development of general prevention education, as well as specialised education efforts aimed at prostitutes and drug users. One of the sharpest rises reported by Mr Yin was that in the percentage of infected drug users, which climbed from 0.5% in 1995 to its current level of 5%.
Figure.
AP PHOTO/GREG BAKER
A health worker hands out AIDS posters at Beijing”s west railway station on World AIDS Day last year