Beijing, Nov 07: China, where HIV/AIDS has witnessed a sharp increase in recent years, will offer free treatment to all poor patients suffering from the deadly disease from next year, a senior official said. About 5,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients in poverty would receive free treatment this year and the free treatment would be available for all poor HIV carriers and AIDS patients next year, Executive Vice Minister of Health, Gao Qiang said.
Speaking at international economic forum here, Gao said HIV/AIDS is a common enemy of humankind and Chinese government has attached great importance to prevention and treatment and treated it as a strategic issue for social stability, economic development, national prosperity and security.
He said the number of HIV carriers in China has risen to 840,000 and the country had 80,000 AIDS patients adding the statistics were from a joint epidemiological survey conducted by China, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS.
He said many AIDS organisations at home and abroad are using "accumulative data", not differentiating clearly HIV carriers, aids patients and deducting dead aids sufferers from the total number, which is why the official figure is lower than many estimates.
The disease has not been controlled and prevention and treatment is still faced with arduous tasks, he said.
Chinese central and local governments have allocated 6.8 billion Yuan (USD 850 million) to establish and improve the disease prevention and control mechanism in the provinces.
Bureau Report