(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-27 09:14

BEIJING-- Despite uncertainty about the funding source, Pan Congbin, an official in northwest China's Gansu Province, is determined to carry on the AIDS control campaign in his community after the conclusion in mid October of a public education program on the prevention of the epidemic.

The leader of Jinyangli Community with a population of 16,700 in Jinchang City, known as China's capital of nickel, believes that AIDS is posing an impending threat to his community and prevention is a must-take lesson for this industrial city.

In his community there are over 70 known drug addicts, but there are also underground sex workers who are mostly "invisible," says Pan, who doubles as community director and secretary of the Communist Party's working committee in Jinyangli.

"Both groups are highly vulnerable to HIV," he says. Such a situation, says Pan, makes it necessary for his community to constantly raise residents' awareness to prevent the epidemic, though the public education campaign sponsored by the China AIDS Roadmap Tactical Support (CHARTS) Project was over.

The conclusion of the campaign in Jinyangli means the community might no longer get fund from the Sino-British project, but Pan says, "I believe we still need such campaigns.

So, we may squeeze some money from next year's budget on law and anti-drug education for the cause if we cannot find other sponsors." This marked a great departure from his indifference to the epidemic before.

"I felt AIDS had little, if not nothing, to do with my work as community head," Pan confesses.

"I would be fine as long as I kept myself away from the fouls that could lead to contamination." And Pan was not alone among local grassroots officials, according to Du Shuqi, deputy director of the social research section of provincial government's policy research center.

In a province with several hundred reported cases of HIV infection among a population of more than 26 million, people in Gansu tend to think the epidemic is still far away from them, says Du.

But a training program targeted at grassroots officials like Pan Congbin organized by CHARTS changed the situation.

At least Pan was turned into a "secretary for AIDS prevention," as so he is nicknamed by locals.

"Many came to the training course thinking AIDS prevention was a personal business and ignorant of their duty in the national prevention and control campaign," Du says, who is also a lecturer for the training program.

"The CHARTS training program was designed to change such thinking and oblige officials at grassroots levels to be involved in the AIDS prevention drive."

The training course usually consisted of three parts: national situation of the AIDS epidemic, state policy in prevention and control, and prevention know-how.

Lecturers would spend more time on basic prevention knowledge as grassroots officials usually lack, but are expected to help spread, such know-how, Du says.

Pan says he was brainwashed at the course where he came to know AIDS or HIV can be so close to himself and his community, and he no longer holds the prevention of AIDS is the exclusive business of health and medical workers. And a brainwashed Pan was alerted to a more serious scenario of the epidemic in his city and community after the training course

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