During their stay in Henan, the group received reports by local officials and visited Wenlou Village, one of the worst-hit areas in the province, Xinhua news agency reported.

They visited village clinics and homes of AIDS patients and HIV carriers, saw AIDS patients who are receiving medical treatment at local hospitals, chatted with villagers, HIV carriers, and representatives of AIDS patients, and had lunch with the patients.

Yin Dakui, vice minister of health, headed the group. He carried out medical checkups on some AIDS patients, encouraging them to overcome pessimistic sentiments and actively cooperate with medical workers to fight the disease.

Li Zhibin, Henan’s deputy governor, said his province would adopt effective ways to reduce the suffering and losses of local residents infected with the AIDS virus.

Henan has been hard hit by AIDS because in the early 1990s, driven by economic benefits, some people in rural areas illegally collected blood plasma by opening unlicensed centers.

Several blood-products companies followed suit. They violated operation rules to collect and purchase large volumes of blood plasma, causing the spread of the AIDS virus among paid blood donors, most of them poor farmers in the province.

Teams for the prevention and treatment of AIDS, led by local leaders, have been set up in major areas where the disease has run rampant.

In Wenlou, a clinic funded by the government has been established to offer free medical treatment to AIDS patients or HIV carriers.

Hospitals from Shangcai County have also dispatched medical workers to be on duty around the clock at an AIDS clinic in Wenlou Village.

(eastday.com 08/09/2001)