A lawmaker of China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), Wednesday urged that special rehabilitation centers be established for drug addicts suffering from the AIDS disease or tested HIV positive.

"Drug addiction and AIDS are twin problems haunting society, and therefore should be addressed concurrently," said Li Jin, an NPC deputy from southwest China's Yunnan Province who is in Beijing to attend the legislature's annual full session.

"It will turn out to be an effective method to build special centers for the compulsory rehabilitation of drug addicts who are also AIDS patients or HIV carriers," Li said.

Prisons, re-education through labor centers and police detention centers should also be required to set up special wards for inmates who are AIDS patients or HIV carriers, added Li, calling for early legislation or judicial explanations regarding such requirements.

Any suspect who belongs to the "high-risk group," such as people with man-to-man sex contacts and sex workers, should be tested for AIDS and HIV upon their arrest by the police, suggested Li, stressing the need for close cooperation between the police and health departments.

At present, AIDS patients and HIV carriers are largely shut out of the rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, prisons or police detention centers in China.

In late 2003, police in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, busted a burglary ring with half of its 26 members found to be either HIV positive or suffering from AIDS. Local media reported that the thieves had viewed their fatal disease as an effective "means of self-protection" as Chinese laws prohibit long-time detention of patients with serious diseases.

China reported its first AIDS case in 1985 and now has an estimated 840,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients.

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2005)