World AIDS Day –December 1

AIDS is a major infectious disease gravely endangering people’s health, bringing physical and psychological suffering to the infected. People infected with AIDS are subject to discrimination and alienation on top of having to pay high medical bills, thus loading a heavy psychological burden on the infected and their families. AIDS is a major public health problem worldwide calling for all governments to allocate massive financial and material resources for prevention and control of the disease. Therefore, on the World AIDS Day each December 1, there will be an awareness campaign around the world in a bid to prevent and control the spread of the disease worldwide. This year is the 21st World AIDS Day, the theme of which is “Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise”, the same as last year’s, and the slogan is “advocacy, participation and implementation”.

At present, AIDS epidemic in Beijing is also on the rise, with a trend of spreading from high-risk groups to the general public. As of October 31 this year, a total of 5,635 cases of AIDS-infected people and AIDS patients have been detected and reported in Beijing, of which 1,184 are local residents, 4,232 are migrant workers from other provinces and cities and 219 are foreigners.

AIDS is mainly transmitted through sex, blood transfusion and mother-to-child transmission. Currently, sex has become the major AIDS transmission means in Beijing, accounting for 54.57% of newly detected AIDS cases this year; AIDS transmission through blood transfusion is mainly found among syringe-sharing drug users. The most effective way of AIDS prevention is to cut off its transmission approaches, which include the use of condoms, safe sex, refusal to drug offers, use of clean syringes as well as voluntary AIDS counseling and testing for women of child-bearing age so as to detect AIDS infection as soon as possible, take timely measures for contraception or termination of pregnancy to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

In recent years, we have made concrete achievements in preventing the spread and prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Beijing by making serious efforts to publicize and implement the PRC Law on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control and implement “Four Free Services and One Care" policy, namely providing free antiviral therapy for AIDS patients at designated medical institutions; providing free counseling and HIV antibody screening for voluntary service seekers; providing free medicine to block AIDS transmission from mother to child for pregnant women already infected with HIV/AIDS; providing free education for AIDS orphans; and providing medicare and assistance for AIDS patients and their families in financial difficulty. And we have promoted the “Three Programs” for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, namely methadone replacement therapy for drug users, replacement for clean syringes and promoting the use of condoms. Statistics show that there have been 755 people detected of AIDS infection between January and October this year among the 1.61 million people monitored and tested, 218 cases less than last year’s 973 cases during the same period, a drop of 22.4%.

Next year, we will take a number of measures to intensify AIDS prevention and treatment.