A baby is delivered on the morning of December 2 in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, by an HIV-infected mother who undertook PMTCT treatment. PMTCT reduces the risk of infant HIV infection to close to zero. Photo: VCG

The transmission of HIV/AIDS in China through blood transfusion has been blocked, and injection drug abuse and mother-to-child AIDS transmission have been effectively controlled, an official from China's National Health Commission said on a press conference on Tuesday. 

The overall epidemic situation in China has been kept at a low level, said Zhou Yuhui, deputy director of the bureau of diseases prevention under China's National Health Commission, at World AIDS Day 2019, held in Beijing on Tuesday, chinanews.com reported. .

In recent years, social organizations in China made a positive contribution to HIV/AIDS prevention and control work. Under the guidance of medical organizations, the social groups can also promote health education, condom use and HIV testing among certain groups, Zhou noted.

Despite the achievements, the situation of AIDS prevention and treatment in China is still facing many challenges. For example, due to the use of social networking software, there are more one-night stands and more sexual partners in people's lives, which increases the chance of being infected with HIV and the difficulty to find those infected, according to chinanews.com.

Frequent population flows also increase the difficulty of prevention and intervention. Major breakthroughs for the prevention and control of HIV, such as vaccines or a cure, have not yet been achieved. The existing technical approaches and policy measures cannot fundamentally control transmission, Zhou said.

The Chinese government and society will continue to make great efforts together in AIDS prevention and control, he said.

China has developed the world's first approved HIV urine test reagent, which is more convenient and faster than the traditional self-test reagent, Chengdu Daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the center for disease control in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, the reagent has been put into use in Chengdu currently; users can test whether they are infected with HIV through urine at home, as reported.