While the 15th International AIDS Conference is being held with great fanfare in Bangkok, Thailand, many residents of China's rural areas still have no idea what AIDS really is.

With 840,000 HIV carriers and 80,000 full-blown AIDS patients in this country, the deadly scourge has become well entrenched since China's first AIDS case was identified in 1985.

The nation now faces an uphill battle as the disease is beginning to spread from such high-risk groups as intravenous drug users and members of the illegal sex trade to ordinary people.

The grave situation has grabbed the attention of top leaders. Last weekend Premier Wen Jiabao made a sobering but determined appeal for society to help stem the spread of the AIDS.

However, the government should have taken a more positive attitude to deal with this problem.

Until very recently, the government had largely adopted a passive posture to the burgeoning epidemic, failing to tackle the problem head-on in the early stages.

The government's low-profile approach resulted in much of society being inadequately informed about this lethal affliction.

The scant awareness about the virus and limited knowledge about prevention methods have become major obstacles hindering the anti-AIDS campaign in China.

The situation is more acute in rural and remote areas, where 80 per cent of the country's HIV/AIDS sufferers reside.

However, it is encouraging that the government has begun to tackle this scourge in a more serious way, a process that culminated in Premier Wen Jiabao's public hand-shake with an AIDS patient last December - the first ever for a top Chinese leader.

Now it is time for the government to recoup the lost time in the war against AIDS by translating its pledges into actions.

Besides offering free and voluntary testing and medications for the poor, which was announced in April, the government should take the lead in educating the masses to sharpen their awareness about AIDS, before the problem spirals out of control.

(China Daily 07/15/2004 page6)