BEIJING: The World Health Organisation issued a call to action to China yesterday over HIV/AIDS as government figures said nearly half a million people are living with the disease or its precursor, with hundreds of thousands more thought to be undiagnosed.
Bernhard Schwartlaender, the WHO’s representative in China, wrote in an op-ed in the state-run China Daily newspaper that “there is much more China needs to do” to prevent infection and better help those living with HIV.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission said that by the end of October, a total of 497,000 people in China had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS since the country’s first case in 1985. The figure represents an increase from September 2013, when 434,000 people in China were known to be living with HIV/AIDS. Another 154,000 have died from AIDS over the past three decades, the commission said.
AFP
