China Boosts Fight Against HIV/AIDS Among Women

On Monday at a Beijing AIDS conference, China's Health Minister Gao Qiang said the proportion of HIV/AIDS patients who are women jumped from 19.4 percent in 2000 to 27.8 percent last year. "In March this year," the minister said, "the proportion of women rose to 28.1 percent."

Gao said the rising numbers reflect women's lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, especially women in poor rural areas, of whom fewer than 40 percent know how to prevent HIV/AIDS. Gao said health workers are distributing posters at schools in the countryside and talking to women and youths to raise awareness of prevention.

Although the virus has spread in China mainly through prostitution and intravenous drug use, Gao said sexual transmission was catching up rapidly as a source of infection for Chinese women. The minister said 55 percent of the HIV/AIDS patients infected through sexual transmission are now women, up from 44 percent in 2001.

If more aggressive prevention measures are not taken, UNAIDS has warned that more than 10 million Chinese could have HIV/AIDS by 2010. Government figures put HIV cases in China at 840,000 and AIDS cases at 80,000. UNAIDS said the true numbers are likely higher.

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