Officials, doctors sent to villages to fight AIDS

www.Chinaview.cn/Xinhua - English ^ | April 20, 2005 | Staff

[WmShirerAdmirer]

Central China's Henan Province sent 114 government officials and doctors to AIDS-hit villages Wednesday in its latest move to fight the deadly disease.

The team, comprising 76 officials and 38 doctors, will fan out in 38 villages in six cities across Henan and will stay there for one year, said Wang Jumei, vice governor of the province.

They will replace a 76-member team sent to these villages last year to help village authorities in offering free medication to HIV/AIDS victims, free and anonymous HIV/AIDS tests of villagers and free education for children orphaned by AIDS, and will take care of the elderly who have been left childless by AIDS.

Prior to their departure, they had got training in AIDS prevention and application of technologies to help local farmers improve living conditions.

Over the past year, their predecessors offered a free checkup to each resident in the worst-hit villages, set up medical records for each patient and provided timely treatment to more than 6,700 patients, said Wang.

They also helped villagers build infrastructure, including one paved road, a well, a school, a clinic, and a nursing home for the childless elderlies and orphans in each village.

Henan, a largely agricultural province with a population of 93 million, saw the country's worst AIDS outbreak when a large number of needy peasants were infected by HIV virus when selling blood to illegal dealers before 1995.

Official statistics show that 11,844 people have been confirmed HIV-positive in the province, and 2,026 children have been orphaned by the death of AIDS-infected parents. The province spent 232 million yuan on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in 2004.

China currently has about 840,000 HIV-positive people, and approximately 80,000 AIDS patients, according to the Ministry of Health.

[WmShirerAdmirer]

Two bureaucrats and one doctor per each of the 38 villages "in six cities". This is a tiny band aid indeed for these infected and dying people. I guess they (the government) isn't very worried for the other 92.5 million people in the province. There in those 38 villages five thousand, one hundred more people became HIV infected patients over the last year alone.

Also according to the Ministry of Health "China currently has about 840,000 HIV-positive people, and approximately 80,000 AIDS patients".

[Spok]

If the problem becomes too costly and attracts too much international attention, the Chinese will, in true Stalinist tradition, quietly declare it a capital crime to contract AIDS.

[stompk]

I wonder if the doctors volunteered ?