China will expand a pilot program that aims to stop the transmission of AIDS from mother to child, curbing the rapid increase of new born infants infected with HIV, China News Services (CNS) reported here Sunday.

The experts of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention held a symposium on AIDS and other infectious diseases at Nanning, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The program will be expanded from eight projects in five provinces to 85 in 15 provinces, the expert's report was quoted by the CNS as saying.

Currently, such projects have been launched in high-risk regions, experts' report said. The report also revealed that in this areas women who are pregnant or in labor lack access to good doctors and HIV-positive women cannot obtain the free medicines used block the AIDS transmission from mother to child.

In some regions of China, the mother to child transmission has increased from 0.1 percent to 0.6 percent, the statistics from the Ministry of Health show.

In addition, the experts said China will recruit more volunteers from the high-risk population to receive HIV tests and recruit volunteers to encourage their friends who are at high risk for the disease to receive an HIV test.

"A chain of high-risk population can be established in this way, which can provide more reliable data for the treatment of HIV carriers and AIDS patients," Wu Zunyou, an expert of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.

A survey, jointly conducted by the center and Yale University of 180 drug users and 50 sex workers, indicated 80 percent of the mare willing to receive the HIV test but are concerned about whether the government can keep the results a secret.

Source: Xinhua