The State Drug Administration of China has approved the production
of a new reagent that simplifies testing for HIV, the AIDS virus.
The new product can give a result within 30 minutes while requiring
no additional facilities, compared with conventional testing
methods that take at least two weeks, according to scientists at Xiamen University and
the Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, which jointly
developed the product.
It
was convenient for emergency tests in hospitals and blood donation
centers in remote areas, and could be used by individuals, said
Jiang Yan, a researcher with an HIV/AIDS center under the Chinese
Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
At
least 1 million people in China are estimated to be infected by
HIV, most of whom, however, are still unaware of their situation,
partly due to the lack of a testing service.
Only 9,824 people nationwide were confirmed through tests as being
HIV positive last year, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said
Friday.
A
card-like device with the reagent tells whether a person is HIV
positive by showing purplish lines when touched with drops of
sample blood. A single line on the card indicates HIV negative,
while two lines mean that the person is HIV positive.
While the new device was as accurate as other Chinese-made HIV test
reagents, which were also on a par with foreign products, it was
much less expensive because it was completely produced from
domestic materials, said Wang Youchun, director of the Cell Lab of
the Beijing Research Institute of Biological Products.
As
a result of better efficiency in HIV tests, China no longer solely
depended on imported products, which would definitely benefit the
diagnosis and prevention of the deadly disease nationwide, Wang
said.
As
well as diagnosis and prevention, China will boost treatment
services since an increasing number of HIV carriers were developing
into AIDS patients, according to the MOH.
Experts estimate that between 80,000 and 100,000 patients are
awaiting treatment across China at present.
The MOH has chosen 51 counties in HIV-plagued provinces to carry
out a program of medical treatment and care, health education and
behavioral intervention among people living with HIV/AIDS. The
program will be introduced to more areas in the next two years.
(People's Daily February 22, 2003)