A health insurance service for medical workers who risk infection with the HIV virus has been launched by New China Life Insurance Co. Ltd. in Mudanjiang, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.
A medical worker, who pays 400 yuan (US$48) for the insurance service, will receive 10,000 yuan (US$1,208) from the company if they are infected with HIV at work, the company said Wednesday.
The insurance service started Tuesday, claims to be the first covering HIV/AIDS in China.
Some medical workers risk being infected by the virus due to frequent contact with HIV-infected and AIDS patients, the company source said.
China was estimated to have more than one million HIV carriers by the end of 2002, a figure which increases by more than 30 percent annually, according to the Ministry of Health.
(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2003)
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