A senior Chinese diplomat said here Tuesday that China hopes the UN institutions take further actions to support the developing countries in their efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.

In a speech to the General Assembly's plenary meeting on the UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, Liu Zhenmin, China's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, said that China highly appreciated the efforts made by the UN in promoting the global common action to combat HIV/AIDS.

Taking combating HIV/AIDS as a high priority, the Chinese government has placed it on the agenda of work "as a strategic issue bearing on economic work, social stability, state security and fate of our nation," Liu told the assembly.

China has set up the initial form of a mechanism for combating HIV/AIDS that suits China's specific situation and achieved remarkable progress in the area, he said.

The government of China has formulated and implemented the policy of free voluntary blood test, free antiretroviral treatment for urban and rural AIDS patients who have economic difficulties, free medical advice and treatment for pregnant women and their babies, free education for AIDS orphans and governmental care for aids patients who lives in poverty, Liu told the assembly.

All these are for achieving universal accessibility of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support, Liu said.

But like many other developing countries, China faced the problem of uneven economic social and cultural development among different regions, extremely limited per capita resources for the purposes of combating HIV/AIDS, Liu said, adding that input in this respect falls far short of meeting the actual need.

"Therefore, we hope the UN institutions take further actions to support the developing countries in their efforts to combating HIV/ AIDS," Liu said.

He suggested the UN institutions continue to increase financial and technical support to those countries including China to address the practical difficulties such as the high cost of antiretroviral treatment and medicine shortage.

Liu also called for strengthening coordination among international organizations.

"In order to guarantee the effective relocation of resources and orderly implementation of projects, we hope that the UN institutions utilize their respective advantages to play a better coordinating role among various international organizations and facilitate the integration of projects of different organizations within a certain recipient country," Liu said.

He said China will continue to actively fulfill its international obligation, help other developing countries and will continue to take an active part in trans-national and trans-regional cooperation for combating HIV/AIDS.

The General Assembly review on the UN declaration came as the International AIDS Society (IAS) announced last week its interest in convening the International AIDS Conference in 2012 in Washington, D.C., making it the first time since 1990.

In 2006, the assembly pledged to achieve universal access to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. A report by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on progress on HIV/ AIDS commitments showed that achieving national universal access targets by 2010 will require an estimated annual outlay of US$25 billion within two years.

(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2009)