HIV/AIDS travel ban to be lifted

MEXICO CITY: China is likely to lift its two-decade-old ban on people with HIV/AIDS entering the country some time next year, a top Chinese health official said here yesterday.

"Government agencies, including the Ministry of Health and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, have reached consensus on the issue," Hao Yang, deputy director of the ministry's disease control and prevention bureau told China Daily at the 17th International AIDS Conference.

After performing the necessary administrative and legal procedures, "the HIV/AIDS restrictions will be lifted in 2009", he said.