Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has met with United Nations anti-AIDS chief Michel Sidibe and pledged to step up efforts to fight AIDS, said a statement from the Health Ministry Thursday.

During their meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, Xi said the government attached great importance to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, which has become the country's leading infectious disease killer.

China had established an anti-AIDS working mechanism that involved the government, different departments and the whole of society, Xi told Sidibe, executive director of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

With increased funding for anti-AIDS programs, China had implemented prevention, treatment and care policies to secure the rights and interests of those infected, Xi said.

"China will combine the prevention and containment of HIV/AIDS with reform of the medical and healthcare system to improve the people's health by strengthening the public healthcare service," he said.

Xi also vowed to support appeals from the United Nations and the international community, bolster south-south cooperation with Africa and push for the realization of Millennium Development Goals worldwide.

Sidibe appreciated China's anti-AIDS work and voiced his expectation for China's bigger role in promoting global healthcare and the improvement of developing countries' healthcare service.

Since China reported its first AIDS case in 1985, the world's most populous nation had recorded 319,877 HIV/AIDS cases and 49,845 deaths by October last year, according to the Ministry of Health.

The statistics only include cases reported by medical facilities.

The ministry and the UNAIDS estimate China had 560,000 to 920,000 HIV carriers, including 97,000 to 112,000 AIDS patients, by the end of 2009.

(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2010)