Creating jobs for people suffering from HIV/AIDS is a priority for authorities in Henan, one of the provinces worst hit by the disease, its governor Li Chengyu said yesterday on the sidelines of the NPC session.

"To date, we have had about 35,000 people confirmed as being HIV-positive," Li told China Daily.

"More than 8,000 of them have died, while among the rest, an increasing number are developing symptoms of AIDS," Li said.

"That means they are often weaker than other people, so moving away from home to work in other cities and provinces is clearly not an easy option."

To help the situation, Li said the province will seek to create more jobs within its labor-intensive industries, while also encouraging private firms to provide more suitable positions for people suffering with HIV/AIDS.

Henan's high incidence of AIDS began to attract attention about eight years ago, when a growing number of people who were HIV-positive began to develop symptoms of the disease. Many people contracted HIV through illegal blood sales.

Since then, improvements in AIDS prevention and control have been made, Li said.

By 2004, Henan had set up a comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support system with free antiretroviral treatment available across the province.

"We have taken the problem very seriously," Li said.

The government has also dispatched assistance teams to 38 of the hardest-hit villages, each of which is home to between 10 and 400 people who are HIV-positive.

The teams live and work with the villagers, providing physical examinations, building roads, clinics and schools, and otherwise providing assistance, he said.

"This has made a tremendous difference to villagers' lives."

Most significantly, the death rate from the disease fell to less than 7.7 percent in 2005 from 15.4 percent in 2001, he said.

"In the past, people with HIV/AIDS were frustrated, frightened and angry, and if any official appeared in the village they would surround him or her to express their complaints," the governor said.

"But stability and calm have returned and some people with HIV have moved to work, just like most of Henan's farmers."

(China Daily, March 7, 2008)