World Population Day today has provided a focus for the government to highlight increased HIV infection rates amongst women and the importance of reducing them.

"The number of women infected with HIV/AIDS is climbing," said Wei Jian'an, standing deputy director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Center for AIDS Prevention and Treatment.

Annual reports released last World AIDS Day, December 1, said the male to female ratio amongst those with HIV had shifted dramatically from 5:1 in the 1990s to the current 2:1. In some areas it has reached 1:1.

Most HIV positive women in China have been infected through illegal blood sales or sexual transmission.

"However, most recent infections in women have been sexually transmitted. Some have been prostitutes, while others are ordinary housewives or career women infected by their husbands," said Wei.

Currently, most are of childbearing age. If prevalence among this group does not receive timely prevention and control, more babies will be infected, warned the Ministry of Health, National Population and Family Planning Commission and All-China Women's Federation.

In Shenzhen, in the southern province of Guangdong, 10 pregnant women were diagnosed with the virus in the first half of 2005.

"The number is bigger than last year, when 14 HIV/AIDS infected mothers were diagnosed during the whole year," said Feng Tiejian, deputy director of the AIDS Prevention and Control Department of the city's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

When a pregnant woman tests positive, the center's policy is to suggest an abortion. If the mother chooses to go ahead with the pregnancy, they receive treatment to protect the unborn child from infection, including medication for the mother and delivery by caesarean section.

Up until now, more than 40 HIV positive women have given birth to healthy babies under the treatment regime in Shenzhen.

Hua Jianmin, State Council secretary-general, told a national population conference last Friday that China would continue its family-planning policy implemented in the late 1970s.

The world population hit five billion on July 11, 1987, and to raise public awareness the UN made July 11 "World Population Day" in 1990.
  
This year is themed "Equality Empowers," stressing that each woman and girl is a unique and valuable human being entitled to equal opportunities and universal human rights.
  
According to the UNFPA, the world population stood at 6.477 billion by the end of June and is expected to be nine to ten billion by mid-century.
  
China has a huge population base, rapid growth and unbalanced structure, but it postponed the time it reached 1.3 billion to January 6 this year – four years later than initially projected.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2005)