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China's medical authorities are working on the country's first nationwide program in a bid to control the spread of AIDS among male homosexuals, according to a work agenda released by the Ministry of Health.
The program aims to strengthen measures to prevent and control the deadly disease among the homosexual community, China Daily quoted Wang Weizhen, deputy director of the HIV/AIDS prevention department under the ministry's disease control bureau.
"By learning more about gay people, we can better protect them against this incurable disease," Wang said.
Studies are under way in several cities to collect information on gay men, such as their distribution and behavioral patterns, according to Wang.
Wang said special funding, technical support and information sharing are also part of the program.
China has between 5 million and 10 million male homosexuals, who are in the highest risk group of contracting HIV and AIDS, said Wu Zunyou, director of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention.
And this group is highly dangerous for AIDS spread as the number of new infections are rising sharply, he said.
According to figures from the Ministry of Health, of the 700,000 Chinese living with HIV/AIDS, 11 percent of them contracted the virus through gay sex. And the situation is getting worse, Wu said.
In 2005, homosexual sex accounted for only 0.4 percent of all new infections reported. Last year, the figure was 3.3 percent, he said.
Despite existing regulations and measures to curb the spread of the disease, new programs targeting special groups, such as gay men, should be developed, he said.
"This is good news for China's gay community," said Xiao Dong, chief of a Beijing-based information support group.
"The government is beginning to take this long-neglected segment of society into consideration in a bid to combat this deadly disease," he said. |
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