Database to be set up on Aids victims
scmp - Monday, March 21, 2005
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Beijing plans to set up a national database of HIV/Aids victims' records in an effort to get a better grip on the extent of the epidemic, Xinhua reported yesterday.
The Ministry of Health will set up the database, with entries for every reported HIV/Aids patient. "One question is that we are still blind about some vital aspects of HIV/Aids control," said Wang Longde , vice-minister of health.
The mainland officially has about 840,000 HIV carriers, and the government has detailed knowledge of only a small percentage of that conservative number of patients.
A mere 12.7 per cent were registered with the health authorities, and disease control centres only had detailed records of 4.2 per cent, Xinhua said.
The draft of China's first HIV/Aids prevention and control regulation had almost been completed and will be submitted to the State Council for further discussion in May, the agency said.
The regulation mainly sets out the rights and duties of regional governments and residents in controlling the deadly disease.
To identify more HIV/Aids cases, every province will offer free, voluntary tests for the HIV virus this year, Mr Wang said.
Giving an indication of future policies, Yunnan province , one of the most seriously affected areas, recently completed testing 410,000 high-risk people.
While Beijing is groping in the dark as it tries to cope with its looming Aids disaster, it is also hampered by a lack of resources.
Hao Yang, vice-director of the health ministry's Disease Control Department, told Xinhua there were only about 200 professional health workers engaged in HIV/Aids treatment and prevention.
Many doctors in this field had not been properly trained to take care of HIV/Aids patients, he said.
The United Nations has predicted there will be 10 million cases on the mainland in five years if the epidemic goes unchecked.
HIV/Aids is already moving from high-risk groups to the general public, Aids activists said.
The primary transmission route in China is through drug injection, but the proportion of sexually transmitted HIV infections and mother-to-child transmissions has rapidly increased in recent years.
Many others were infected through unsanitary blood-buying schemes in the early 1990s. About 60 per cent of infected people are in the 15-29 age group.
posted by cbs at Tuesday, March 22, 2005
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