The law is to prevent infectious disease
The National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, has passed a law banning the buying or selling of blood to prevent the spread of AIDS and outlawing discrimination against victims of infectious diseases, Xinhua News Agency reported. President Hu Jintao signed 12 decrees enacting two revised laws and 10 amendments to laws which were passed at the 11th session of the Standing Committee of the NPC, which ended on Saturday. Most significant was the revised Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, which requires the government to guarantee funds for infectious disease prevention. The law stipulates that governments of various levels should strengthen prevention and control of AIDS and take measures to prevent the spread of the disease, Xinhua said. This is the first time that AIDS is specifically targeted in the law. Accordin to United Press, for the first time China has approved a law specifically targeting AIDS prevention and outlawing discrimination against victims of infectious diseases. The BBC reported Sunday the law passed by China's Parliament guarantees funding from the federal government to local authorities dealing with a fast-spreading disease. The law strengthens control and monitoring of infectious diseases, including SARS and bird flu. The law also strengthens AIDS prevention programs. It's estimated that 840,000 people in China have HIV or AIDS. China says it has 840,000 HIV/AIDS cases, but experts say at least one million poor farmers were infected in the central province of Henan alone as a result of botched blood-selling schemes in the 1990s. President Hu Jintao signed 12 decrees enacting two revised laws and 10 amendments to laws which were passed at the 11th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which ended Saturday. Most significant was the revised Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, which requires the government to guarantee funds for infectious disease prevention. "The law stipulates that governments of various levels should strengthen prevention and control of AIDS and take measures to prevent the spread of the disease," Xinhua news agency said. "This is the first time that AIDS (has been) specifically targeted in the law." State television said the law banned the buying and selling of blood and ruled out discrimination against people infected with, or suspected of having, contagious diseases. The country has also had to battle recent outbreaks of SARS , a disease it was slow to acknowledge, and bird flu, informs Reuters.
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