Planck's Constant

From Today's Shanghai Daily - Six-year effort against AIDS notes impact, Excerpt:

2006-10-28
A SINO-BRITISH AIDS prevention project has concluded its six-year mission in southwest China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, promoting condom use among female sex workers and reducing the syringe sharing by drug users.

At a meeting held by the Ministry of Health and the British Embassy in China on Thursday, officials said the project distributed 4.2 million condoms and 1.28 million disposable syringes, and collected 1.14 million used needles.

A total of 129,000 high-risk and vulnerable groups in 83 counties in the two provinces were targeted by the project - the China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project - including people living with HIV/AIDS, injection drug users, women sex workers, men who have sex with men and people who visit prostitutes.

Launched in June 2000 with funds from Britain, the project helped Yunnan and Sichuan set up 57 volunteer community teams and provided care and support to 4,531 people infected with HIV and AIDS. Volunteers raised AIDS awareness among 46,702 women sex workers.

The project has achieved its targets, according to experts from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new round of the project will soon begin in seven Chinese provinces, with 30 million pounds (US$57 million) provided by Britain, officials said at the meeting.

China has approximately 650,000 people infected with HIV, including 75,000 AIDS patients, according to official estimates.