Beijing will install about 1,000 condom vending machines at
hotels, bars, university campuses and construction sites around the
Chinese capital this month to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The Beijing AIDS Prevention and Control Working Committee is
cooperating with the Beijing AIDS Prevention Association, a
nongovernmental organization, and a condom manufacturer on the
program. It will initially be implemented in four central Beijing
districts on a trial basis.
Customers may buy the condoms for 1 yuan (12 US cents)
apiece.
Machines placed on college campuses will dispense yellow-colored
condoms, to remind young people to exercise caution when having
sex.
In hotels, the vending machines will be placed in discreet
locations to avoid embarrassing purchasers.
Poor quality and sometimes unpackaged condoms made up nearly
three quarters of the two billion condoms used in China last year.
A Beijing Disease Control and Prevention Center official said that
the vending machine condoms are guaranteed to be of good quality
and reliable. The price is kept down, he said, because they are
functional but not frivolous, omitting some of the features that
more expensive products offer.
The new machines will supplement the capital's 1,700 existing
vending machines, many of which are often out of service or empty.
Guan Baoying, vice director of the city health bureau's disease
control department, said that the older machines would be repaired
this month.
China's official estimate puts the current number of HIV/AIDS
cases at 840,000, but officials admit that current statistics are
incomplete. Some experts say that at least 1 million poor farmers
were infected in the central province of Henan
alone as a result of selling blood at unlicensed collection
stations that ignored proper procedures.
The United Nations has said that the number of AIDS victims in
China could quickly rise to 10 million if serious action is not
taken immediately.
Earlier this year, Vice Premier Wu Yi,
who also heads the national committee for AIDS prevention, said
that if no effective control measures are taken, "the consequences
will be very grievous." She called on governments at all levels to
accelerate and expand their work in this regard.
(China.org.cn October 11, 2004)
