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S. China Province Reports Increasing HIV/AIDS Cases

Posted on: Monday, 20 February 2006, 09:00 CST

S. China province reports increasing HIV/AIDS cases

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guangdong Province registered 13,032 HIV-positive people last year, a big increase from 7,477 in 2004, the China Daily reported Monday.

The number has made the province the fifth among all Chinese provinces and regions hunted by the epidemic, following Yunnan and Henan provinces and the autonomous regions of Guangxi Zhuang and Xinjiang Uygur.

By the end of 2005, 792 AIDS cases had been reported and 355 people had died from the disease in Guangdong, according to an annual report released by the Guangdong Health Department last week.

"Since a lot of HIV carriers who contracted the virus before 1998 have turned into AIDS patients now, the situation of the disease will be much more serious in the future," Huang Fei, a deputy director of the department, was quoted by China Daily as saying.

More than 80 per cent of the HIV carriers are drug addicts, Huang said.

Guangdong started methadone treatment for drug addicts at the end of 2005, an important move by the government to prevent and control the spread of the virus, he said.

Two hospitals, located in the cities of Yangjiang and Taishan respectively, which have a larger number of drug addicts, started to run their methadone programme on World AIDS Day (December 1) last year.

Taking methadone a synthesized narcotic helps reduce addicts' craving for drugs and deters them from using hypodermic needles that can spread HIV/AIDS and other blood-transmitted diseases.

Moreover, those who take methadone are able to work and return to normal life instead of looking sleepy all day after taking heroin.

Doctors do regular urine tests among methadone takers, preventing them from taking heroin or other drugs during the treatment.

"The methadone programme runs quite well," said Tan Wenkang, a deputy director of the hospital, expressing the belief that more addicts would take the treatment in the future.

Tan said each addict gets a dose of methadone at 10 yuan (1.2 U.S. dollars).

As methadone is a substitute for drugs, some patients have to take it all their lives, but some can get rid of the drug addiction after they take it for several years, according to Tan.

Huang said 10 more methadone treatment clinics are expected to be set up in the province this year, making about 2,000 drug addicts benefit.

China started the methadone treatment programme in 2001 to combat the increasing number of drug addicts.

So far, methadone treatment is available in 127 clinics all over the country. The number may increase by 1,000 in the following five years, according to Huang. The clinics in Yangjiang and Taishan are among the methadone treatment clinics that are accredited by the central government.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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