Vice Health Minister Wang Longde said on Tuesday that China's 120 million migrant workers should be targeted by HIV/AIDS prevention and control efforts due to their particular vulnerability coupled with many local governments' focus on providing information only for registered residents.

The State Council, Ministry of Health and several other government departments yesterday jointly announced a program to start tomorrow, World AIDS Day, to ensure 65 percent of migrant workers have access to HIV/AIDS information by the end of next year and 85 percent by the end of 2010.

Under the program, governments at all levels are required to allocate sufficient funds for HIV/AIDS awareness publicity and strengthening coordination and supervision for further work.

At Tuesday's launch of an initiative to provide information to migrant workers on trains and in stations, Peng Peiyun, president of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC), said basic advice and information will be provided on major routes, building on their previous rail-based campaigns.

A ceremony at Beijing Railway Station involved experts from Beijing You'an Hospital, dedicated to infectious diseases, staff from the Railway Epidemic Prevention Center and a well-known comedian Hou Yaowen, who had been appointed "Railway AIDS-Prevention Ambassador."

The RCSC planned to travel to Inner Mongolia's Erenhot, bordering Mongolia, for a local joint promotion event there with the Mongolian Red Cross.

According to the Ministry of Railways, China's railway network had more than 1.1 billion passengers in 2004, many of whom are migrant workers traveling in search of work or returning to their rural homes.

At a press conference in Beijing today, Health Minister Gao Qiang reiterated an aim to keep the number of people infected with HIV in China to below 1.5 million before 2010, and a commitment to allocate 800 million yuan (US$99 million) to prevention and control measures this year.

"Governments at all levels should organize all departments and mobilize the whole of society to hold back the spread of AIDS," he said.

By the end of September, the Ministry of Health said the country had reported 135,630 HIV infections, but the actual number is thought to be significantly higher once untested cases are taken into account. 

World AIDS Day was initiated by the WHO in 1988 and falls on December 1 each year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2005)