Health

China to launch AIDS radio programme: state media

January 19, 2010 on 10:00 pm | In Uncategorized |

Chinas top state-run radio network will launch a programme about AIDS featuring an HIV-positive host in the latest sign of a new official openness towards the disease, state media said Sunday.

It will deal with “publicising knowledge on HIV/AIDS and prevention and control of the disease”, Xinhua said, quoting the radio stations chief editor Yang Wenyan.

The weekly programme, “Positive Talks”, will air each Saturday beginning January 16 on China National Radio, Xinhua news agency reported.

No information on the programme could be found on China National Radios website and AFP could not immediately reach network officials involved with it.

Yang expected the program to give more “attention, care, and support” to Chinas legions of HIV-infected people, Xinhua said.

But a number of signs have emerged that the government is gradually becoming more comfortable addressing such issues openly.

The government has long been accused of stifling discussion of the nations HIV/AIDS problem, while homosexuality has for decades been a taboo subject in China.

In November, the health ministry and United Nations launched an ad campaign against HIV discrimination featuring basketball star Yao Ming. Last month Chinas first government-approved bar opened in the southwestern city of Dali.

In 2007, China allowed the first televised ad campaign promoting the use of condoms to stem HIV.

But AIDS experts say authorities are being forced to deal more openly with such issues in a bid to stem the disease.

Until 2001, Chinas communist rulers classified homosexuality as a mental illness.

The United Nations has estimated between 30 and 50 million people may be at risk from the disease in China.

Chinas health ministry estimated that at the end of 2009, 740,000 people were living with HIV in the country but experts say the true figure is much higher than the official tally, which refers only to confirmed cases.

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