China's lawmakers mull enacting law for AIDS prevention, control

Chinese lawmakers are mulling over revising the amendment draft of the contagious disease prevention and control law in an attempt to improve AIDS prevention and control.

At the ongoing 10th meeting of the 10th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), He Luli, vice-chairperson of the 10th NPC Standing Committee, said when the time is right, the NPC should enact an AIDS prevention and control law to better fight AIDS spread and improve AIDS treatment.

Some members of the NPC Standing Committee Tuesday advised putting a clause that "individual blood collection is banned" into the contagious disease prevention and control law, acknowledging that the severe AIDS spread in the central province of Henan should be blamed for rampant illegal blood selling and blood collection.

An assessment report on China's AIDS prevention and control, released by the Ministry of Health, shows HIV is an epidemic covering all the Chinese mainland's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. There are approximately 840,000 HIV-carriers, of whom 80,000 suffer AIDS, official figures show. Some experts warn that over 10 million Chinese will possibly be HIV-positive in 2010, unless effective measures are taken.

Vice-Premier Wu Yi noted in April this year that China's AIDS prevention and control work is at a crucial stage because the epidemic may spread from high-risk groups to normal people.

Apart from AIDS prevention and control, lawmakers also attached great importance to safeguarding the legitimate rights of infectious disease carriers, proposing to incorporate the clause of "state offers free medical treatment for impoverished infectious disease patients" into the contagious disease prevention and control law.

They also suggested to revise relevant items in the contagious disease prevention and control law draft in a bid to beef up management over virus labs, saying that people should draw lessons from this year's SARS outbreak which happened in a SARS virus research lab.

The ongoing 10th meeting of the 10th NPC Standing Committee is being held here from June 21 to 25, during which the amendment draft of the contagious disease prevention and control law was submitted for second deliberation.

Source: Xinhua