Former US President Bill Clinton met with a number of Chinese
AIDS patients on Thursday. Clinton is on a private tour.
Clinton met in the morning with eight children in Zhengzhou,
capital of central China's Henan
Province.
The children, aged between 7 and 12, were selected from 83
children living in the province who receive medical treatment and
drugs donated by the Clinton Foundation.
Liu Xuezhou, vice director of the provincial health bureau, told
Clinton that these 83 children have responded positively to
treatment received in July.
Clinton praised the bureau and the Henan government for their
efforts and achievements in combating HIV/AIDS, stressing that
children should get specialized pediatric treatment and medicine
because their bodies are different.
Henan, one of the provinces with a serious HIV/AIDS problem, was
the first in China to receive pediatric drugs from the Clinton
Foundation, according to Ruby Shang, director of the foundation's
China office.
About 200 children benefit from such drugs nationwide, according
to Shang.
Geng Long, one of the eight children, said in his thank-you
letter to Clinton that his "skin diseases had faded away" since he
began taking the drugs in July.?
Since leaving office in 2001, the former US president has been
engaged in delivering HIV therapies to needy countries through the
Clinton Foundation, a non-governmental organization.
The foundation's China AIDS project and its donation of
pediatric drugs followed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
between the foundation and China's Health Ministry.
Under the MOU, the foundation agreed to provide technical
assistance in AIDS care and treatment to China.
After meeting with the children, Clinton delivered a keynote
speech.
He said that although China had made great achievements in the
past two decades in many fields, it still faces tough challenges in
energy procurement, environmental protection, public health and
political reform.
Completing his less than 12-hour tour of Zhengzhou, Clinton flew
to Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan
Province, where he met some adult AIDS patients in a hospital
and visited the provincial disease control center.
"Many projects are helpful and should serve more people. It's
healthy and safe here," Clinton commented.
Yunnan and the foundation started a three-year project in June
to provide treatment to AIDS sufferers in the remote areas of
Yunnan.
Clinton is scheduled to leave for Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China late Thursday
night.
(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2005)
