AIDS Day launched

By Lindsay Beck December 1, 2004 - 3:17PM

The world marked AIDS Day today, promising to eradicate ignorance and
prejudice about a disease that was at first dismissed by many as a
western evil confined to drug users, homosexuals and prostitutes.

China, criticised for its slow initial response to HIV/AIDS, put on a
public display of commitment to fighting a disease which the United
Nations fears could infect 10 million Chinese by 2010.

In the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, sex workers got AIDS day off
to an early start by tying red ribbons to the uniforms of policemen
yesterday to spread awareness.

China's battle against the spread of HIV had been hampered by
politics, but yesterday, President Hu Jintao shook hands with an AIDS
patient and Premier Wen Jiabao called for "unremitting efforts"
against the epidemic.

A picture of Hu wearing a red silk ribbon on his chest as he met the
patient at a Beijing hospital was splashed on the front pages of
major newspapers. He was accompanied by Vice Premier Wu Yi and
Beijing's Communist Party boss Liu Qi.

"During the visit to the Beijing You'an Hospital, Hu also urged the
whole society to phase out discrimination and estrangement towards
AIDS patients," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Across the world, activists and governments were due to mark the day
with events drawing attention to the disease and promoting its
eradication.

Wen said China had made "remarkable progress" in HIV/AIDS prevention
and control, but acknowledged that the country "still faces a stark
situation in this field", according to Xinhua.

He urged governments at all levels to give priority to the issue
by "utilising all sorts of resources and conscientiously implementing
all prevention and control policies and measures".

Local Chinese officials have a mixed track record of acting on
national directives.

China is ranked alongside India and Russia as countries outside
Africa which are most at risk from AIDS.

Khalid Malik, resident representative of the UN Development Program
in Beijing, praised Chinese leaders today for their new-found zeal.
"With Chinese top leaders' strong commitment, laws and regulations
have been revised, free treatment is being provided to AIDS patients
in poverty and in rural areas and overall awareness of AIDS is being
raised through health education," Malik said in a statement to be
delivered later.

"This year's World AIDS Day is an occasion to recognise the burden
that women and girls bear in the age of HIV/AIDs but equally to
celebrate their achievements in the fight against the epidemic," he
quoted U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as saying.

Antonio Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime, said: "The world can no longer afford to ignore the enormity
of the HIV epidemic.

"The time has come to strike back at a killer that is transmitted by
drug use and sex, as well as by ignorance and denial," he said in
Beijing.

China estimates it has 840,000 people with HIV or AIDS, but some
experts say there may be that many alone in the central province of
Henan, where a blood-selling scandal in the mid-1990s led to
thousands of infections.

In India's Ahmedabad, members of voluntary groups working among AIDS
patients planned to tie ribbons made by HIV-positive women to people
to spread awareness against the deadly disease.

"Women will be at the centre of campaign this year. If they are
educated and prevented from contracting the diseases, it minimises
the risk in a family," said Laxman Malodia, an anti-AIDS activist.

India has over 5.1 million people infected with HIV, the second-
largest number after South Africa.

A joint assessment prepared by a UN team and experts from China's
State Council, or cabinet, said China was making progress with
actions such as promoting condoms, providing some free anti-
retroviral therapy and nearly doubling it budget for AIDS to 810
million yuan ($A127 million) for 2004.

But the report also said China's key challenge was implementing such
policies in the country's far-flung and often impoverished provinces.
- Reuters

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