Ten-fold subsidy increase for Henan AIDS patients

ZHENGZHOU - People suffering from AIDS/HIV infection in Central China's Henan, one of the provinces worst hit by the virus, are to get medical allowance ten times of the current amount, local authorities announced Monday.

Monthly allowance to AIDS/HIV patients will be increased from 20 yuan ($3.18) to 200 yuan, the provincial civil affairs department said.

Eighty percent of the allowance is covered by the provincial government and the rest by the municipal and county governments.

The new standard will be back-dated to October 1, 2012, with the sums for October and November paid retroactively by the end of this year.

Henan has given additional systematic living allowances to AIDS/HIV patients who receive government subsistence allowance since 2004. Besides the 200-yuan monthly sum, AIDS patients can still enjoy the subsistence allowance, which is about 1,500 yuan per year for rural residents and 3,120 yuan per year for urbanites.

Nearly 40,000 AIDS/HIV-affected orphans in the province can enjoy a monthly allowance of at least 600 yuan if raised in families or 1,000 yuan if raised in orphanages.

According to figures from the provincial disease control and prevention center, Henan had reported a total of 55,424 cases of AIDS/HIV by the end of October, including 3,058 new cases this year.

Data from the Ministry of Health showed that China had reported a total of 492,191 cases of AIDS/HIV by the end of October, including 68,802 new cases this year. In the ten months, 17,740 AIDS-related deaths were reported in the country, a year-on-year increase of 8.6 percent.