China will be given US$120 million over the next five years to help tackle three deadly diseases.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria kicked off its latest programme in Beijing yesterday.

Of the money committed by the organization, about US$29 million will be used to try to prevent a new wave of HIV infections in China, said Hao Yang, deputy director of the Disease Control Bureau of the Ministry of Health.

The money will be used to subsidize intervention projects to stop the spread of infections through unprotected sex in 18 project cities of seven provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

They are Southwest China's Chongqing, Northeast China's Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin, North China's Inner Mongolia, and Northwest China's Ningxia and Gansu.

Unprotected sex, especially those involving high-risk groups such as prostitutes and homosexuals, are becoming a main channel for the spread of HIV in the country.

About 9 per cent of the estimated 650,000 HIV/AIDS cases in China are through unprotected sex, said Wu Zunyou, director of the National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention.

Intravenous drug users account for nearly 40 per cent of the total infections, and about 25 per cent of cases are from unsafe blood sales and transmissions.

Moreover, about 26 per cent of HIV carriers refuse to reveal how they contracted the virus.

The HIV/AIDS projects supported with cash from the charity will aim to target the high-risk groups.

It will also focus on improving the capacity of communities, non-governmental organizations and voluntary organizations to fight the deadly virus.

About US$53 million will be used on Tuberculosis (TB) control in 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Currently, experts estimate that China has 5 million TB patients, 80 per cent of whom are living in rural areas.

Meanwhile, a total of 63.8 million rural residents from 1,813 towns of six provinces, Yunnan, Anhui, Hainan, Hubei, Henan and Jiangsu, will benefit from an anti-malaria initiative supported by the fund, project leaders said yesterday.

Nearly US$40 million will be released by the fund over the next five years in China, to reduce the burdens caused by the disease in poverty-stricken areas in the six provinces.

The project will help residents get access to effective prevention measures and better medical treatment.

In the past 50 years, China has made great progress in controlling malaria, said Wang Yu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the early 1970s, China had more than 24 million malaria cases. In 2004, official statistics show that there were 740,000 sufferers in 21 provinces.

The Global Fund was created to finance a dramatic turn-around in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. These diseases kill more than 6 million people across the world each year, and the numbers are growing.

Since 2003, the Global Fund has committed US$390 million to China.

Source: China Daily