Yunnan promotes quick HIV testing

KUNMING, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Health authorities in southwest China's Yunnan Province have expanded quick HIV testing to 50 drugstores and eight universities.

People can buy HIV self-test kits at the 50 drugstores in eight prefectures and cities that allow them to get a result with saliva samples within 10 minutes, said Lu Lin, deputy director of the Yunnan provincial health and family planning commission, on Wednesday.

Eight universities in Yunnan offer HIV urine self-test kits.

People can test at home and do not have to go to hospital, and this helps protect privacy, said Lu. He added that the tests have high accuracy rate.

Lu said the health authorities will promote the self-test kits to ensure that over 90 percent of the HIV-infected people know of their infections by 2020.

In the first 10 months of the year, 9,663 new cases of HIV/AIDS were reported in the hard-hit province, 60 cases fewer than a year ago. A total of 2,874 people died, according to the commission.

Among the new cases, 93.6 percent were related to unprotected sex.

Yunnan had 98,878 people living with HIV/AIDS as of Oct. 31 this year. Official data show that China had about 718,270 people living with HIV/AIDS as of June this year. Enditem