The vice governor of southwest China's Yunnan
Province, Wu Xiaoqing, said efforts are being strengthened to
control the spread of HIV, including new regulations on informing
the spouses of those who test positive, reported Xinhua News Agency
last Thursday.
The new regulations issued this month by the
provincial health department stipulate that spouses must be told if
their partner has a positive HIV test result. If the person tested
does not do this within a month after receiving the result, the lab
will do it for him or her.
Chen Juemin, health department director, said the
measure is expected to boost monitoring, behavior intervention and
treatment.
Wu said that the focus of this year's prevention
and control work will be to improve monitoring, with 15 city-level
and 102 county-level HIV testing laboratories being built.
People with HIV/AIDS on low incomes will be offered
free treatment and support. Children who are HIV positive, or those
from families affected by HIV/AIDS, will also be able to have
access to free schooling, said Wu.
The vice governor said that the province will
continue its pilot program providing methadone to drug users in
order to reduce infections through the sharing of injecting
equipment, as well as being determined to crack down on the illegal
blood trading.
Programs providing free condoms in hotels and
entertainment venues and free needle exchanges were launched in the
province last year. They were welcomed by many as a pragmatic and
potentially effective way to help prevent transmission, though
viewed as controversial by some.
The province, neighboring the "Golden Triangle" of
drug production between Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, recorded its
first HIV positive test result in 1989 and presently has over
17,000 people known to have HIV.
This makes Yunnan second only to Henan
Province, which has reported more than 20,000 cases, in the
whole of China.
(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2005)