Free Olympic healthcare products to battle STDs

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau has distributed free condoms and AIDS prevention leaflets throughout the Olympic Village and hundreds of Beijing hotels in a bid to promote awareness of the disease, bureau chief Jin Dapeng said recently.

More than 400,000 condoms and some 250,000 copies of the pamphlet have been placed in hotel rooms across the city, Jin told China Daily.

A quarter of the condoms were allocated to the Olympic Village, he said.

Jin said the distribution of the condoms and leaflets is part of a wider campaign entitled "The 29th Olympics and AIDS Prevention - the Flapping Red Ribbon" to increase AIDS awareness during Olympic year.

In June, more than 10,000 Olympic volunteers attended training courses on the subject, he said.

"The campaign is part of Beijing's efforts to stage a people's Olympics, and to increase public awareness and reduce the incidence of AIDS in the capital," said Jin, who is also head of the medical support group of the Organizing Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games .

About 700 volunteers in the capital have helped distribute leaflets, he said.

In addition, authorities have also added another two methadone clinics to the existing six to treat narcotics users.

Beijing now has a widespread network, comprising 69 clinics and 128 laboratories, for reporting and monitoring HIV and AIDS in the city, Jin said.

Wiwat Rojanapithayakorn, senior advisor to the World Health Organization China, praised Beijing's campaign.

"The Chinese government has made significant efforts to promote AIDS awareness on a global scale and has staged many good campaigns.

"It is a practice that I hope will be followd by future Olympic host cities," Wiwat said in his speech on last Friday.

Along with the WHO, several other international AIDS organizations attended last Friday's press conference, including the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.

Since their first Olympic appearance at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, free condoms have become a regular feature of the global sports event.

The Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Sydney Olympics in 2000 and Athens Olympics in 2004 distributed 50,000, 80,000 and 130,000 condoms in Olympic villages respectively.

Jeroen Sluijter, a 33-year-old baseball player from the Netherlands, said last Friday it was a good idea to pass out condoms free of charge in the Olympic Village.

"You've got 16,000 athletes in the village and it's very likely some boys will like some girls, and there will be sex going on," he said.

"If there are free condoms around, people are more likely to use them," he said,

In the first half of this year, 489 new cases of HIV/AIDS were reported in the city, down slightly on the same period last year, he said.

"Beijing still has a low incidence of HIV/AIDS cases, considering it has a population of nearly 18 million," Jin said.

Last year 1,190 new cases of HIV/AIDS were reported, up slightly on 2006, he said.

The main concern for health authorities is more new infections reported from the general public, rather than just in high-risk groups, he said.

"Nearly 51 percent of all new reported cases are attributed to people having unprotected sex," he said.

As a number of athletes, officials, reporters, spectators and tourists in Beijing for the Games said it is an excellent opportunity to promote AIDS prevention and control.

Source: China Daily