CHINA ADMITS "VERY SERIOUS" AIDS EPIDEMIC

BEIJING, Aug 23 (Reuters) - China said on Thursday it was facing a "very
serious" AIDS epidemic with HIV cases up by two thirds in a year.

"Like many other countries in the world, China is also faced with a very
serious epidemic of HIV/AIDS," Vice Minister of Health Yin Dakui told a
news conference in a rare admission by a high-level official.

Reported infections of HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS, surged 67.4
percent year-on-year in the first half of 2001 to 3,541 cases, according to
a health ministry statement.

"We think the problem is only in Henan but we don't know at this moment. We
will send some people to get some surveys, to go to the villages," Dr Sun
Xinhua, Director of Division II Department of Disease Control, told
reporters after the news conference.

State media reported earlier this year some villages in the northern
province of Henan had HIV infection rates of 65 percent.

Since China reported its first AIDS case in 1985, the cumulative numbers of
reported HIV sufferers had reached 26,058 by June, the ministry statement said.

Intravenous drug use accounted for 69.8 percent of the cases while
heterosexual contact accounted for 6.9 percent, it said. The ministry of
health has said 21 percent of cases were due to unknown reasons, according
to Xinhua news agency.

Health ministry experts have said the number of HIV/AIDS cases could be
more than 600,000 and the United Nations has said China will have 10
million or more HIV/AIDS sufferers by 2010 unless it acts decisively.

Chinese health experts are to investigate whether mobile blood banks like
those that infected the villages in Henan have spread the infection to
other parts of the country.

Mixed In A Tub

The government said in the statement that illegal plasma collection
stations in some provinces had collected large volumes of plasma from
peasants in the early 1990s without following government regulations and
standard protocol.

Farmers sold blood for 40 yuan ($5) per sample to buying stations -- some
run by local government officials -- which pooled the donations in a large
tub and extracted the valuable plasma.

The mixed blood was then pumped back into the donors to prevent them from
becoming anaemic.

Health Ministry experts maintain the phenomenon ceased around 1996,
according to government checks.

Some 996 HIV infections were reportedly transmitted through blood plasma
donations between 1998 to June 2001, accounting for six percent of China's
reported infections in the period, the statement said.

Earlier this month, China earmarked 100 million yuan ($12 million) annually
to curb the spread of AIDS, an amount many think falls far short of the sum
required to battle the virus.

But Vice Minister Yin said health officials were struggling with a
population and local officials largely ignorant of the causes and dangers
of AIDS, noting the number of patients with sexually transmitted diseases
increases year after year.

"The leaders and general public there do not fully realise the hidden
dangers of a large scale epidemic of HIV/AIDS as well as the harm it may
bring about to the local social development and general public in those
places," Yin said.

"They have not paid adequate attention to the issue."

Local protectionism was also a major obstacle to determining the true depth
of the AIDS epidemic, experts said.

"Right now the central government has a very good policy but for some local
governments they have a very low commitment," project manager of China-U.K.
HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project Cheng Feng told Reuters Video News.

"Even some local governments (that did) recognise the situation, but they
want to hide it, they think about the influence on their economic
development," he said.

Under-reporting was a major problem and officials relied on hospitals and
voluntary testing for their surveys, he said.

"If you look at the general epidemic pattern, every year the increase is
double and double, even by the poor reporting system. In some areas, they
have no reporting system," said Cheng.