Govt funding for drug addicts HIV program

BEIJING - A program focusing on HIV/AIDS transmission through needle use among drug addicts has made a successful bid for money from a government support fund for social organizations, national newspaper Health News reported on Thursday.

The program, led by the Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, targets drug addicts infected with HIV in Beijing, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and Southwest China's Yunnan province, the latter two both being home to a large ethnic minority population.

The program also won the same bid last year. Cao Xueyi, its leader, was quoted as saying that this year will see the organization continue to subsidize poor drug addicts on Methadone medication, an anti-addiction treatment, and to provide medical assistance to drug addicts who are infected with HIV.

The government fund will also be used in training volunteers to run needle exchanges for addicts, exchanging used needles for clean ones in order to discourage needle sharing, Cao said, adding that the program is intended to reduce drug addicts' chances of contracting HIV, Hepatitis and sexually-transmitted diseases.