The Ministry of Health has pledged to do more to
prevent mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and has issued a new set
of guidelines for local governments and doctors.
Pilot projects are also being initiated in 127
counties to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and comprehensive care and
treatment.
Of people with HIV/AIDS in China, 0.6 percent are
babies who acquired the virus from their mothers, according to data
collected from 194 surveillance sites. The government estimates
that there are about 840,000 Chinese with HIV in total.
Without effective prevention measures the rate of
mother-to-baby transmission is about 15 to 50 percent, but this can
be significantly reduced with timely intervention. This can include
drug therapies, risk-reducing delivery techniques and avoidance of
breastfeeding.
The guidelines say that there should be better
public education and health care in sample regions over the next
two years, so that 90 percent of women there can be tested for the
virus before they get married and have children.
According to Hao Yang, of the ministry’s HIV/AIDS
control section, obligatory pre-marital testing stopped on October
1 and such testing has since been voluntary and free. The
guidelines say that all test results should also be
confidential.
The Ministry of Health has said that it aims to
give 90 percent of children born to mothers with HIV/AIDS free drug
therapies in their first two years, reducing the chance of them
becoming HIV positive themselves.
Yunnan Province, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
and Henan Province in particular have seen a rapid increase of
cases where mother-to-baby transmission is thought to have taken
place.
Hao said that education remains a central task in a
country where many people are still ignorant about what HIV/AIDS is
and how to prevent its spread.
(China Daily November 9, 2001)