China call on donors to support global aid for HIV
16 June 2009
Xinhua Economic News Service
A senior Chinese diplomat said China hopes the United Nations takes further action to support developing countries in their efforts to combat HIV and AIDS.
Taking combating HIV and AIDS as a high priority, the Chinese government has placed it on the agenda of work "as a strategic issue bearing on economic work, social stability, state security and fate of our nation," Liu told the assembly.
China has set up the initial form of a mechanism for combating HIV and AIDS that suits China's specific situation and achieved remarkable progress in the area, he said.
The government of China has formulated and implemented the policy of free voluntary blood test, free antiretroviral treatment for urban and rural people living with HIV who have economic difficulties, free medical advice and treatment for pregnant women and their babies, free education for AIDS orphans and governmental care for aids patients who lives in poverty, Liu told the assembly.
All these are for achieving universal accessibility of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, Liu said.
But like many other developing countries, China faced the problem of uneven economic social and cultural development among different regions, extremely limited per capita resources for the purposes of combating HIV and AIDS, Liu said, adding that input in this respect falls far short of meeting the actual need.
Liu suggested the UN institutions continue to increase financial and technical support to those countries including China to address the practical difficulties such as the high cost of antiretroviral treatment and medicine shortage.
Liu also called for strengthening coordination among international organizations.
"In order to guarantee the effective relocation of resources and orderly implementation of projects, we hope that the UN institutions utilize their respective advantages to play a better coordinating role among various international organizations and facilitate the integration of projects of different organizations within a certain recipient country," Liu said.
He said China will continue to actively fulfill its international obligation, help other developing countries and will continue to take an active part in trans-national and trans- regional cooperation for combating HIV/AIDS.
The General Assembly review on the UN declaration came as the International AIDS Society (IAS) announced last week its interest in convening the International AIDS Conference in 2012 in Washington DC, making it the first time since 1990.
In 2006, the assembly pledged to achieve universal access to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. A report by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on progress on HIV and AIDS commitments showed that achieving national universal access targets by 2010 will require an estimated annual outlay of 25 billion U.S. dollars within two years.
