China's central and Henan provincial governments will jointly invest "at least" $4 million to provide free medicine to treat several thousand people with AIDS in the central Chinese province, according to a person familiar with the plan. It is the government's first substantial effort to treat patients amid a growing epidemic. The medicines will include both domestically made generic versions of the AIDS cocktail and patented versions purchased from multinational drug companies.

The drugs will be distributed to Henan farming villages, where unsanitary blood-buying operations widely spread HIV in the mid-1990's. The collapse of health care funding in rural China, where the disease is concentrated, has left many towns and villages unable to provide even basic medical needs. Only about 100 people in China are now taking the AIDS cocktail, which costs as much as $4,000 annually, putting it out of reach for all but a handful of patients.

The Henan plan provides clues on how the government aims to confront AIDS. Surveys have shown that HIV prevalence is rising among intravenous drug users and prostitutes. But the government plan focuses only on poor farmers who contracted HIV through blood-selling. These farmers are also the focus of the government's application for a $96 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The application, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, says the funds would be devoted to seven central provinces where illegal blood-buying was most rampant. The money would first focus on 56 of the worst-hit counties in those provinces.

Back to other CDC news for October 18, 2002

Previous Updates | Search the CDC archive