China yesterday issued its first detailed policy guidelines on dealing with its exploding HIV/AIDS epidemic, including requiring local governments to offer free drugs and testing.
The State Council issued a statute on the prevention and control of AIDS which spells out the responsibilities of governments at all levels and the rights of carriers, Xinhua news agency said.
Local governments above the county level must provide free anti-HIV/AIDS drugs for rural AIDS patients and underprivileged urban patients, according to the guidelines on the State Council's Web site.
They must also offer free treatment and consultations on prevention of mother-baby infection to pregnant women and new mothers, the statute says.
Those who seek information and testing should be given those services for free and no department can reveal carriers' identities or personal information without their permission.
AIDS orphans should receive free tuition and be exempt from paying fees, including the cost of books, while those officials who cause the disease to spread in anyway will be punished or prosecuted, the guidelines say.
Approved by the State Council on Jan. 18, the rules will go into effect on March 1.
The move comes as the government grapples with how to stop the further spread of the epidemic which shows no signs of abating, with 70,000 new infections recorded last year.
The number of known cases in China was around 650,000, down from a government estimate in 2003 of 840,000, according to findings of a study released by China's Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and UNAIDS last month.
But UN and Chinese officials warned that the lower figure was due to an overestimate last time, and that there was by no means a slowdown in the growth of new infections.
RSS