Family ties have become a vulnerable part in the spread of AIDS virus and this basic social unit can also be a shield to contain the killer disease, said a noted Chinese professor in the on-going World Family Summit.

The spread of AIDS through family can be proven from the climbing number of women HIV/AIDS carriers, Prof. Jing Jun with prestigious Qinghua (Tsinghua) University in Beijing told the summit, a three-day forum focused on family and general socio-economic development in various aspects.

According to Jing, the proportion of infected women was 10 percent in China in the 1980s as against 41 percent at present. Nearly half of the 39.4 million people now living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are women, and the proportion surged to 60 percent among sub-Saharan Africans.

The number of women infected with HIV has jumped 56 percent in the last two years in East Asia, and 48 percent in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Prof. Jing noted.

Gender inequalities result in poor education among women, failure to practice safe sex, and a lack of access to proper treatment, which in turn have fueled the spread of HIV.

As the HIV/AIDS epidemic is spreading through, or even within families, highlighting families' status as the basic social unit can effectively curb the pandemic threat, Prof. Jing added.

According to Jing, China concentrates mainly on its prevention efforts on the dominant categories of high-risk groups in face with HIV/AIDS, including injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, gay men, and blood-sellers.

China, however, often neglected the fact that these so-called high-risk groups are made of individuals who still have families or had families in the past. A growing number of ordinary people, especially family members of HIV/AIDS infectors, have been endangered by these so-called high-risk groups.

According to a national epidemiological survey done in 2003, China has 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, ranking the second in Asia. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in China is on the verge of wide proliferation from high-risk populations to the general population.

It is estimated that in Asia, the killer disease may claim 540,000 lives in 2004, owing to the spread of HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Prof. Jing acknowledges that 80 percent of the HIV/AIDS cases live in China's countryside. As a total of 130 million migrant workers coming from the rural areas to seek jobs in cities and towns, they should be treated as a highly guarded group.

Family is important and irreplaceable for HIV/AIDS prevention, Jing said. To that end, China needs to reduce violence against women to improve the living environment and condition for women and kids, and to enhance basic medical care conditions to do away with the barriers for families to seek the testing, medical care and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2004)