On the 19th World AIDS Day, the campaign to prevent HIV/AIDS and combat discrimination is being relentlessly publicized across China, the country where the virus was previously linked to "immoral conduct".

Premier Wen Jiabao spent the day with 15 AIDS-affected children he invited to Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership's Beijing compound. In halls decorated with balloons and red ribbons, they chatted, sang, and watched paintings together.

Wen, like the 15 children, had a red ribbon, the global symbol of fight against AIDS, pinned on his black jacket.

Outside the leadership compound, the campaign to raise public awareness of HIV/AIDS continued across the country. In cities like Nanjing, Shanghai, people stood on streets, distributing AIDS prevention brochures and promoting the use of condoms.

In Beijing, 5,000 cab drivers volunteered to deliver brochures to their customers for ten days. In the central city of Zhengzhou, capital of the AIDS-ravaged province of Henan, people flew kites embroidered with red ribbons in front of the railway stations.

In addition to airing the footage of Wen spending time with AIDS-affected children, China Central Television agreed to broadcast a foreign documentary this weekend to promote AIDS knowledge. "A Closer Walk" has an additional 10 minutes focusing on China's prevention and control of AIDS, a source with CCTV said.

"We have done a lot to combat AIDS, but not the job is not well done," Wen told the children. "By all means, we are going to send a signal that more care should be given to AIDS-affected children."

China has an estimated 650,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, including 75,000 with full blown AIDS. The Health Ministry reported last week that the number of people officially reported as HIV infected had risen 27.5 percent since the beginning of the year, to more than 180,000.

Experts believe discrimination and the social stigma, as well as inadequate medical resources, constitute a major part of China's AIDS problem.

The lives of AIDS-affected children were just a microcosm of the lives of people living with AIDS in China, said Li Qimin, deputy director of China's National Committee for the Care of Children, which has organized three summer camps for AIDS orphans since 2004.

Li invited 70 orphans a year from poor provinces to Beijing. "For the first camp in 2004, the kids were turned down by 40 Beijing hotels, even though they were all healthy," he said.

This evoked an unprecedented public outcry to remove the social stigma of AIDS in China. Later that year, in a widely publicized move, President Hu Jintao shook hands and talked with two AIDS patients in a Beijing hospital.

On the following Chinese New Year, Wen Jiabao visited the homes of AIDS patients and AIDS-affected children in Henan, where a large number of villagers fell ill and died after contracting the virus through unhygienic needles used in the illegal blood trade.

On Friday, Wen met He Chunjie, the girl he visited in Henan back then. The premier was pleased to learn the orphanage was caring for He and the other children well.

"Premier Wen's move will have significant impact on the promotion of social care for AIDS-affected children in China," said Dr. Henk Bekedam, WHO's China representative.

But he said awareness about HIV/AIDS was still low and there was much work to do in fighting stigmatization.

Wu Zunyou, an official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who used to feel "shocked and indignant" at the ignorance of local officials of the country's HIV/AIDS policy, said, "Things are much better now."

He attributed the changes partly to Chinese leaders' high-profile meetings with AIDS patients in the past two years.

AIDS prevention was included in the curriculum at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee this year. The lecture includes topics such as AIDS prevention knowledge and policies, the current situation, the relation between policymakers and the disease and response measures.

Prof. Jin Wei, who initiated and organized the lecture, said the courses aimed to "influence those who have the power to influence others".

Previously, a survey on AIDS knowledge among more than 3,000 party officials showed more than 60 percent were unaware that no AIDS vaccines existed and about 30 percent thought HIV carriers should be isolated for treatment.

"In the past, many of our officials only knew of GDP and not of the CDC [Centre for Disease Control and Prevention]. But actually the CDC has a closer relationship to the lives of the people," Wen Jiabao told Margaret Chan, the newly-elected World Health Organization chief, this week.

Wen made the call to local officials again on Friday, before parting with the children. "Governments at all levels should sincerely carry out China's AIDS control policies and invest more to combat the disease.

"The whole society should also pay more attention to AIDS problems and care more for AIDS-affected people," he added.

(Additional reporting by Wu Jing, Zou Shengwen)

Source: Xinhua