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"Gearing up to fight AIDS"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(22/08/05)
Six bases set up to train health workers on curbing
disease
SIX state-run HIV/AIDS training bases have recently been established in
China to bring in more professional staff to curb the deadly epidemic,
officials said.
The bases are located in provincial or municipal centres for disease
prevention and control – in Jiangxi in the east, Liaoning in the north-east,
Hubei in the central region and Yunnan in the south-west as well as in
Beijing and Shanghai.
The main task of the bases is to train public health workers to become
professional staff involved in HIV/AIDS prevention work, said Hao Yang,
vice-director of the Health Ministry's Disease Control Department.
“By attending classes held in the bases, they are expected to be capable of
carrying out improved intervention activities among groups most at risk,”
Hao said on Friday.
The most common high-risk activities related to HIV/AIDS in China are drug
abuse, unsafe sex and illegal blood sales.
The ministry estimates that China has 840,000 HIV/AIDS cases but only about
100,000 sufferers have so far been registered by health authorities.
China currently has fewer than 1,000 professional health workers engaged in
intervention work, Hao said.
“It is a greatly inadequate number of workers needed to do intervention
activities among thousands of high-risk people in such a big country,” said
Wang Ning, vice-director of the National Centre for Sexually Transmitted
Diseases and HIV/AIDS Control and Prevention.
The intervention activities include testing and detecting HIV carriers,
spreading public awareness, distributing condoms at entertainment hotspots
and making clean syringes available for drug users. — China Daily
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