Give them condoms
The regulation, issued by the commerce and health ministries, said condoms should be provided, or machines selling them made available and materials supplied on AIDS prevention.
The move follows an unusual step by the booming eastern province of Zhejiang in March to fine hotels and bars if they did not provide condoms.
China originally stigmatised AIDS and denied its existence but with HIV gaining a foothold in the world’s most populous country, officials are shifting gears.
According to government statistics from 2005, there are an estimated 650,000 people living with HIV in China, IHT said.
The newspaper said HIV’s spread in China was largely due to tainted blood transfusions in hospitals and schemes to buy blood plasma, where it was collected using unsanitary means
A lack of sex education and unwillingness to talk about sex still hampers the fight, health experts were quoted saying.
Education about sex doesn’t start until Grade 5 in primary schools. And from 2003, the Ministry of Education added lessons on drugs and AIDS.
“But in the rural areas where a considerable number of students are ‘left-behind children’, students don’t have as much education as the ones in the cities – not to mention health education or even sex knowledge,” said Ma Yinghua, a councillor.
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