Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said on Tuesday that China's
120 million migrant workers should be targeted by HIV/AIDS
prevention and control efforts due to their particular
vulnerability coupled with many local governments' focus on
providing information only for registered residents.
The State Council, Ministry of Health and several other
government departments yesterday jointly announced a program to
start tomorrow, World AIDS Day, to ensure 65 percent of migrant
workers have access to HIV/AIDS information by the end of next year
and 85 percent by the end of 2010.
Under the program, governments at all levels are required to
allocate sufficient funds for HIV/AIDS awareness publicity and
strengthening coordination and supervision for further work.
At Tuesday's launch of an initiative to provide information to
migrant workers on trains and in stations, Peng Peiyun, president
of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), said basic
advice and information will be provided on major routes, building
on their previous rail-based campaigns.
A ceremony at Beijing Railway Station involved experts from
Beijing You'an Hospital, dedicated to infectious diseases, staff
from the Railway Epidemic Prevention Center and a well-known
comedian Hou Yaowen, who had been appointed "Railway
AIDS-Prevention Ambassador."
The RCSC planned to travel to Inner Mongolia's Erenhot,
bordering Mongolia, for a local joint promotion event there with
the Mongolian Red Cross.
According to the Ministry of Railways, China's railway network
had more than 1.1 billion passengers in 2004, many of whom are
migrant workers traveling in search of work or returning to their
rural homes.
At a press conference in Beijing today, Health Minister Gao
Qiang reiterated an aim to keep the number of people infected
with HIV in China to below 1.5 million before 2010, and a
commitment to allocate 800 million yuan (US$99 million) to
prevention and control measures this year.
"Governments at all levels should organize all departments and
mobilize the whole of society to hold back the spread of AIDS," he
said.
By the end of September, the Ministry of Health said the country
had reported 135,630 HIV infections, but the actual number is
thought to be significantly higher once untested cases are taken
into account.?
World AIDS Day was initiated by the WHO in 1988 and falls on
December 1 each year.
(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2005)
