Vice Premier Wu Yi said yesterday that China will step up its efforts to take precautions against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in order to secure the health of all people.

　　Wu made the remarks at a meeting with Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in Beijing yesterday.

　　China has an estimated 840,000 HIV carriers and 4.5 million people suffering from tuberculosis. Malaria was occasionally reported in some southern parts.

　　Formed in 2002, the Global Fund has raised US$5.4 billion for the prevention and control of the three communicable diseases with projects in 128 countries.

　　Wu thanked the Global Fund for its assistance and support to China. She said China will support the work of the Global Fund and actively participate in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

　　The Global Fund has signed grants worth US$270 million with China and the projects cover 1,300 counties in China's 27 provinces. China has also promised to donate US$10 million to the Global Fund.

　　China will expand a pilot program that aims to stop the transmission of AIDS from mother to child, curbing the rapid increase of newborns infected with HIV, according to China News Service.

　　Experts at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently held a symposium on AIDS and other infectious diseases at Nanning in southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The program will be expanded from eight projects in five provinces to 85 in 15 provinces, CNS quoted the experts' report.

　　Currently, such projects have been launched in high-risk regions, the report said, revealing that in these areas women who are pregnant or in labor lack access to good doctors and HIV-positive women cannot obtain free medicines used to block AIDS transmission from mother to child.

　　In some regions, the mother to child transmission rate has increased from 0.1 percent to 0.6 percent, statistics from the Ministry of Health show.

　　In addition, the experts said China will recruit more volunteers from the high-risk population to receive HIV tests and recruit volunteers to encourage their friends who are at high risk to receive an HIV test.

　　"A chain of high-risk population can be established in this way, which can provide more reliable data for the treatment of HIV carriers and AIDS patients," Wu Zunyou, an expert from the disease prevention center said.

　　(Xinhua)