A total of 305 million condoms, purchased by the Chinese government with special funds for HIV/AIDS prevention, has been sent to local Centers of Disease Control(CDC) across the country, a condom producer has said.

This is the first time for the government to purchase condoms for HIV/AIDS prevention with special fund allocation.

The condoms will be further delivered to hotels and public entertainment places, the condom producer said Tuesday.

The government signed its first order for condoms with China's largest condom producer, Gaobang Latex Products Manufactory based in south China's tourist city Guilin, believing that the wide use of condoms is an effective way for HIV/AIDS prevention.

So far, 42 hotels in Guilin have received the government's free offer.

"Before an effective AIDS bacterin come out, condom is the most effective and economical way to prevent the disease from spreading through sex," said Tao Ran, a member of China Youth HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Fund.

"If people could get a condom as convenient and natural as buying a Chinese cabbage, the AIDS prevention function carried by condom could finally imbue into people's lives and change their biases," he said, implicating that at present, condom is still hardly accepted by the masses.

Official statistics show that among China's 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, 45 percent get infected through drug injection, 25 percent through blood transfusions and 30 percent through unsafe sex, a factor which has been rising steadily.

Health experts called for carrying out "100 percent" condom use programs (CUP) in China.

The country is carrying out CUPs in provinces such as Hubei, Yunnan and Jiangsu and planning to cover other regions like Fujian and Beijing. Such measures, carrying the slogan "No Condom, No Sex," are designed to ensure condom provision.

But the issues of how to ensure condom quality and reasonable pricing are also the obstacles in the campaign, according to Zhao Pengfei, program officer with the World Health Organization (WHO) China office.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2005)