A picture, a calendar or even a balloon may be the best way for millions of people living in China's vast rural areas to learn about AIDS, one of the biggest threats to public health in the world today.

China has decided to tinker with user-friendly methods including exhibitions, VCDs and TV programmes to spread knowledge of the disease across the nation to try to keep it in check.

Pan Guiyu, vice-minister of the State Family Planning Commission, said yesterday that educating people nationwide about AIDS is the top priority to prevent the disease from getting out of hand.

"We will give knowledge to farmers in the easiest way they can understand," said Pan. "We have to teach them that it is of the utmost importance that we prevent AIDS from spreading and bring the disease under control."

A recent survey from the commission of more than 7,000 people in China indicated that nearly 20 per cent of them had never heard of AIDS before.

Just over 71 per cent said they knew AIDS was highly infectious, but most of them had no clear idea of how the disease could be spread. Just over 62 per cent said they knew they could take precautions to prevent them catching AIDS but they did not know what these precautions were.

The month-long survey, carried out last December, talked to people in seven counties and cities across China including both developed coastal areas and the less-developed inland regions.

The interviewees ranged from 15 to 49 years old, and rural residents accounted for 63 per cent of the total surveyed.

"Chinese residents, especially those in rural areas, have very little knowledge about what AIDS is all about, not to mention prevention and treatment," said Pan yesterday.

The Ministry of Health has revealed that by the end of last year, there were 22,517 known HIV/AIDS cases in China. The ministry has estimated, however, that more than 600,000 people in China have been infected.

Since 1985, China has discovered 880 patients with full-blown AIDS - 466 of them have died.

Sharing needles, prostitution and contaminated blood transfusions are major ways for HIV to spread, according to Shen Jie, the division chief of the Disease Control Department with the Ministry of Health.

Chen Shengli, an official with the State Family Planning Commission, said a lack of education has been the biggest stumbling block against nationwide efforts to prevent AIDS, especially in rural areas.

Two-thirds of the HIV/AIDS cases in China are in rural areas and 87 per cent of the victims are young or middle-aged, official statistics indicated.

　　From China Daily