Chinese, US officials and experts pledged to work more closely to
boost China's anti-AIDS efforts with the country being warned its
HIV/AIDS epidemic situation is critical.
At
a high-profile conference in Beijing on Friday, they suggested
China and the United States increase exchanges and cooperation in
scientific research and personnel training to help address the
issue of AIDS in China, which was potentially important for the
global fight against the disease.
"China is at a critical time in HIV/AIDS control since the disease
is spreading very rapidly from those with high-risk behaviors to
the common people," Chinese Health Minister Zhang Wenkang told the
Sino-US Conference on Research and Training in AIDS-related
Areas.
Latest statistics from the Ministry of Health suggest that one
million Chinese have been infected by HIV, the AIDS virus, since it
was first detected in China in 1985.
"The infection figure could expand to 10 million by the year 2010
if we fail to take immediate action to control it," Zhang said. "We
now have no time to waste."
Despite great efforts by the Chinese government and the whole
society in the past decade to check the disease, China was still
seriously lagging behind in meeting huge and growing demands for
HIV/AIDS prevention and control, Zhang said.
He
said Sino-US cooperation in AIDS-related areas would enormously
benefit not only the Chinese people, but also global
counter-HIV/AIDS campaigns.
Zhang's remarks were echoed by US ambassador to China Clark T.
Randt Jr., who said HIV/AIDS was a global problem requiring global
solutions.
The United States and China had a long history of working together
on a broad range of medical issues, and HIV/AIDS had now become an
important area, he said.
Sino-US cooperation against AIDS widened last June as Zhang Wenkang
and his US counterpart, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Tommy Thompson, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Washington
D.C.
This called for increased collaboration in the development of
effective intervention strategies to prevent HIV transmission.
"It lays the foundation for closer cooperative ties between us,"
Zhang said.
China has also obtained a five-year grant totaling US$14.8 million
to participate in the Comprehensive International Program for
Research on AIDS (CIPRA), initiated and sponsored by the US
National Institute of Health (NIH) to support international
research on practical and affordable methods for preventing and
treating HIV/AIDS.
Undertaken by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, the China CIPRA will focus on studies of
epidemiological and transmission factors of HIV, behavioral
intervention, pathogenesis of the virus, and the clinical study and
development of new AIDS vaccines.
China CIPRA will collaborate with other ongoing NIH-sponsored
HIV/AIDS programs in China, such as the HIV prevention trials
network, HIV vaccine trials network, and international training and
research programs.
(Xinhua News
Agency November 2, 2002)