Providing Condoms

China has passed an action plan to combat the rising spread of HIV and AIDS. By 2015 condoms or condom vending machines should be available in 95% of hotels. Government figures indicate that the country has about 780,000 people living with HIV/AIDS including 154,000 AIDS patients. While this is rather small for such a large country, the government wants to stem the rise of the disease and prevent it from becoming an epidemic. While the overall numbers are low according the World Health Organization the numbers of reported cases in China are rising and heterosexual transmissions is surpassing injection drug use as the number one cause for the infection. The head of the UN AIDS prevention agency, Michel Sidibe, had lobbied China, South Africa, India and Russia to either energize or reverse their approach to the epidemic. Since China is responding, perhaps it will set an example for the other countries. Indeed for all countries, including our own.