VICE Premier Wu Yi called Wednesday for national efforts to combat the rapidly increasing spread of HIV/AIDS in China, the China Daily reported.

"The epidemic is at a critical point of spreading from high-risk groups to common people," Wu said at a national HIV/AIDS control conference in Beijing.

Prevention and control work was at a vital stage, said Wu, who is also China's Health Minister.

"We can completely contain the momentum if we take it seriously. Otherwise, we will lose this best, fleeting opportunity," she warned health officials from various regions of the country.

The possible consequences of not controlling the HIV/AIDS outbreak are stunning, experts say.

By 2010, there could be 10 million infected people, which means there would be one HIV carrier in every 130 people in the country.

Wu's ministry estimates that by the middle of last year, there were 840,000 HIV/AIDS HIV carriers and AIDS sufferers on the Chinese mainland, 80,000 of whom had developed full-blown AIDS.

The epidemic is increasing at a rate of more than 30 percent each year.

Wu was supported by Yip Ray, director of the China Office of the China-U.S. AIDS Prevention and Care Project, who says that China still has a window of opportunity to effectively contain the virus spreading from high-risk groups to the general public.

A very difficult task in preventing the virus from spreading was that almost 90 percent of those infected did not know they had the disease, Yip said. Meanwhile, most of those infected with HIV were among high-risk groups, including drug users, illegal blood donors, and prostitutes, Yip said. Moreover, about 70 percent were in poverty-stricken areas.

Wu asked local officials to strengthen their efforts in public education, fight illegal blood sales, distribute condoms and clean needles to high-risk people and to raise the level of surveillance and monitoring of the epidemic. 


Editor: Wings