China Committed to AIDS Prevention

By the end of September 2011, 429,000 AIDS cases had been reported in China, with a reported 86,000 deaths from the disease. Health Minister Chen Zhu released the figure at a meeting on international cooperation in preventing and treating the currently incurable disease. He said that although on the whole China has a low incidence of the epidemic, its occurence is higher in some areas and communities than in others. Transmission is now primarily through sex, and this is especially so among male homosexuals. As HIV-positive people begin to display symptoms, and as AIDS patients enter the later stages of the disease's development, the adverse impact of the disease on local economies and society becomes more prominent. According to Minister Chen, China has set up a prevention and treatment system in which the government plays a key roll in assigning clear-cut responsibilities to various departments and increasing public awareness of the disease. Chen notes this system has already begun to show results and a dip in the domestic mortality rate of the disease has been detected. China aims for a containment strategy until a cure is found and will intensify international exchanges and cooperation and do its best to contribute to the realization of the UN Millennium Development Goals.