China's Ministry of Health has launched a nationwide campaign against HIV/AIDS transmission from mother to child. The initiative attempts to control the soaring infection rate through this channel, which has risen from 0.1% of all HIV/AIDS patients in 1997, to 0.6% last year. The following is an interview on Wang Linhong, deputy director of China's National Center for Women and Children's Health.
 
Back in 2001, China noticed the danger of the AIDS virus to women and their children, and built its first trial area, in central China's Henan Province, to conduct prevention work against HIV/AIDS transmission from mother to child. Three years later, China ordered the work to be extended to more than 120 high risk areas all over the country. Though the number of infected mothers and children still accounts for less than 1% of all HIV/AIDS patients, Prof. Wang Linhong considers it a dangerous trend.

"The increase of women patients means the disease is spreading to the whole society, and control and prevention will become more difficult."

As women are infected easier than men, and children and women are usually the victims of the disease, the new program is China's first one specially designed for this group. The measures include health checks and consultation, medical treatment, information collection and educating the general public. As one of the designers of the program, Prof. Wang Linhong explains its main features.

"Major ones are prevention measures, including providing anti-virus medicines to pregnant mothers who are HIV/AIDS patients and making sure they give birth in qualified hospitals, as well as offering medicines and proper medical treatment to the newly born babies. But the root of the problem is how to prevent infection of women of childbearing age. So couples should have a pre-marriage health check so as to prevent infecting each other and the next generation."

Prof. Wang says she is very impressed by China's huge investment in this campaign and the humane approach to carrying it out. All the fees for HIV checks and anti-virus medicines are paid by the central government, and some local governments offer free milk powder for HIV/AIDS patients' babies.

Besides concrete methods to prevent virus transmission from mother to child, Wang Linhong believes educating the public is most important, but also time consuming.

"Even though we have advanced methods and equipment, it's useless if people don't realize the danger of the problem and accept our service. The possibility of mother to child infection is around 30%, but this would be greatly reduced with proper and timely measures."

In some trail areas where prevention work has been developed, 60 to 70 percent of pregnant HIV/AIDS patients are willing to accept their service. Wang Linhong says it may take years to educate people and eliminate discrimination against innocent women and children.

As another World AIDS Day is coming soon, with the theme "Women, Girls, HIV, and AIDS," Prof. Wang hopes society will give more care to women and children in fighting this deadly disease.

(CRI November 22, 2004)