Southwest China's Yunnan province is setting up the first domestic AIDS prevention and care center in China, the provincial AIDS prevention and control office announced here Wednesday.
Located 28 km from Kunming city, the capital of Yunnan province, the center will cover an area of 10,000 square meters with 200 beds.
According to the report released by the office, the center will serve as China's first special institute providing patients with AIDS consultation, prevention, testing and treatment services.
Southwest China's Yunnan province is setting up the first domestic AIDS prevention and care center in China, the provincial AIDS prevention and control office announced here Wednesday.
Located 28 km from Kunming city, the capital of Yunnan province, the center will cover an area of 10,000 square meters with 200 beds.
According to the report released by the office, the center will serve as China's first special institute providing patients with AIDS consultation, prevention, testing and treatment services.
The report also said the center would particularly focus on treatment and care for HIV carriers, including anti-HIV treatment, psychological counseling, HIV spread control education and medicine research.
Apart from AIDS sufferers in China, the center would also accept patients from overseas, so as to accumulate and exchange experience in international anti-AIDS undertakings.
Statistics released by the office showed that in the first three quarters of 2003, 47.5 percent of HIV-carriers in Yunnan province were infected through blood transmission and the ratio of those contracted the virus through sexual intercourse rose to 21.9 percent.
Experts warned that the HIV virus had become an epidemic not only within high-risk groups, such as drug abusers and commercial sex workers but also among normal people.
The establishment of the center is expected to provide treatment and care to a large number of AIDS sufferers, who ordinary hospitals do not have the capacity to care for, and give professional guidance on the usage and research of HIV medicines.
(People's Daily December 12, 2003)
