Sino-British AIDS project records positive results in SW China

A Sino-British AIDS prevention project has concluded its six-year mission in southwest China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, promoting the use of condoms among female sex workers and reducing the sharing of syringes by drug users.

A meeting held by the Ministry of Health and the British Embassy in China on Thursday revealed that the project distributed 4.2 million condoms and 1.28 million disposable syringes, and collected 1.14 million used needles.

A total of 129,000 high-risk and vulnerable groups in 83 counties in the two provinces were targeted by the project - the China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project - including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA), injection drug users (IDU), women sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM) and people who visit prostitutes.

Launched in June 2000 with funds of 18.8 million pounds from Britain, the project helped Yunnan and Sichuan set up 57 volunteer community teams and provided care and support to 4,531 people infected with HIV and AIDS. Volunteers raised AIDS awareness among 46,702 women sex workers.

The project has achieved its targets, according to experts from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A new round of the project will soon be launched in seven Chinese provinces, with 30 million pounds provided by Britain, according to the meeting.

China has approximately 650,000 people living with HIV, including 75,000 AIDS patients, according to official estimates.

Yunnan, which borders southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, had 40,157 cases of HIV infection at the end of 2005.

Sichuan had reported a total of 7,646 cases by June this year.

The project helped raise the numbers of Sichuan IDU who did not share syringes to 78.7 percent in 2005 from 52.4 percent in 2002, and in Yunnan to 85.8 percent in 2005 from 64.4 percent in 2003.

The use of condom by women sex workers in the two provinces also rose during 2002 to 2005, from 35.2 percent to 52.3 percent in Sichuan and 36.2 percent to 70 percent in Yunnan.

The project also helped dispel fear and discrimination towards AIDS patients and HIV carriers in Zizhong of Sichuan, where 109 people were infected after selling blood to illegal dealers in 1995.

Apart from the Sino-British project, China has been carrying out a methadone treatment program since 2003, aiming to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS through contaminated needles used by drug addicts.

Methadone is widely used as a substitute for heroin to help addicts kick the habit.

288,000 of China's drug addicts were found to be infected with AIDS, according to Zeng Yi, chief scientist with the STD (sexually-transmitted diseases) and AIDS Prevention Center under the Ministry of Health.

The country opened 206 methadone clinics between July and September this year, bringing the total to 307 three months ahead of schedule, according to the national CDC.

The CDC plans to set up methadone clinics in all cities and counties which have over 500 registered drug users by the end of 2007. The program now covers about two thirds of China's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Source: Xinhua