"China is still facing serious challenges in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, but the Chinese government is determined and capable of curbing the spread of the disease to ensure the people live a healthy and peaceful life," Wen said, according to the Xinhua news agency.

He made the comments in a meeting on Monday with Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), who has warned that a "truly exceptional response" is needed from Beijing to control the disease's spread.

China has an estimated 840,000 people infected with HIV, including 80,000 with full-blown AIDS, according to official figures. International groups believe the real figure is much higher.

The United Nations has predicted 10 million cases in China in five years' time if the outbreak goes unchecked.

Wen said the government understood the risk and attached great importance to curbing the spread of the disease.

China's cabinet set up a high-level committee to oversee HIV/AIDS prevention last year and the government has "greatly increased" financial backing for the fight against AIDS, Wen said.

The visiting Piot, however, told AFP that while he was impressed with the government commitment China still faced major challenges, including ensuring the government's commitment and policies filter down to the grassroots level.

"The key challenge right now for China is to make sure the many good projects can reach the whole country," Piot said.

In September 2003 the government announced it would provide free anti-retroviral treatment to AIDS patients in rural areas and to urban sufferers with financial difficulties.

The program, however, is moving "quite slowly," Piot said.

It has been limited to just over 15,000 people as of March. There is also a dropout rate of about 20 percent since, due to a lack of medical supervision, those who cannot handle the side-effects simply stop taking the drugs.

There is also a death rate of about eight percent, with the drugs reaching those patients too late.

"When you take provinces like Henan and Yunnan, which are quite poor and where the health services are not in good shape, you can't just parachute drugs. You need quite well-trained doctors and nurses," Piot said.

China also needs to provide more assistance to high-risk groups such as drug users, sex workers and homosexuals, he said.

"The most vulnerable population are at highest risk but they are getting the least attention," said Piot.

He urged the government to provide injecting drug users with methadone and access to clean needles to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Good pilot programs, such as one in the southwestern province of Yunnan which teaches police officers to treat drug addicts as patients and not just as law-breakers, should be expanded nationwide, Piot said.

AIDS education should also be made available in "every single school," said Piot.

Despite having more confidence in the ability of China to bring the epidemic under control, Piot said China remained one of the top countries of concern.

"China is on the top of every list because of the size of its population," Piot said. "Even if it is not a big explosion it means many people. One percent of the people is bigger than the population of many African countries."

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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