China's state council has released a new HIV/AIDS action plan, outlining the government's plans to control the spread of the virus.The plan states that the number of people living with HIV should not exceed 1.2 million, up from 780,000.
China's state council released a new HIV/AIDS action plan last month, outlining the governments plans to control the spread of the virus. The plan states that the number of people living with HIV should be not exceed 1.2 million, up from 780,000, according to the report.
To reach these goals, the action plan calls for condoms to be made more widely available, in 95% of hotels and other unspecified public places, and for the rate of condom usage to reach 90% among those most at risk. While condom availability is important, educating people on why to use them remains the biggest challenge, says, Baochang Gu, professor of demography at renmin university:
"Promotion of condom use of course I think is important. Above all these, I think more important, than the promotion of condom use is education."
The plan does call for better education on HIV/AIDS as well, which has historically been a problem. Lack of education about the ways in which one can and cannot become infected has remained a problem among the general population. Helen Ping of the China HIV/AIDS Information Network says that more needs to be done to educate young people.
"Things to attract the young people to know more about HIV/AIDS - not only talking about HIV/AIDS we need to talking about sex, sex education, sexuality, so I think for this sector, the HIV/AIDS part, we need to have very good linkage between the health system and the education system."
In order to control the disease, organizations need to be able to work freely with those in the most danger, like sex workers. The plan calls for a continuation of the country's "strike-hard" campaign, which aims to clamp down on sex work, which may be counter-productive to the aim of controlling the disease.
"There are some conflicts between AIDS prevention and current law. Reducing these laws has been talked about. Carrying condoms is taken as an evidence as illegal sex. There is a big conflict between the police and the ministry of health . there are conflicts between AIDS prevention and many rules in other government department."
Li Chao Lin, the president of the chinese foundation for prevention of std and aids, has also seen this problem.
"But it is a long process of promoting the condoms. At first , the police didn't agree with this - why do you place condoms in the hotels? You are actually encouraging the illegal sex."
Perhaps the most enduring problem is discrimination and stigmatization against people with the disease. Although the country's top leaders have made efforts to combat this, it remains a problem among the general population.
"You know once I was in Australia with a delegation - we were invited to have lunch with HIV people. So I thought that's good, I can meet these people, see what kind of people they are. Then I enjoyed the lunch with them, then after lunch I walk out, I found my fellows all, they didn't have lunch, they just waited outside! So I feel very disappointed. There is a tendency in the HIV/AIDS program in China, I call the bio-medical approach. Too bio-medical. They only look at the issue as a bio-medical issue, rather than a social issue, rather than an educational issue."
If there's one message to be taken away from these professionals in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, it seems to be to take note of the importance of education and knowledge.
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