KUNMING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province logged 9,413 new HIV/AIDS cases from January to October this year, down 2.6 percent year on year, a downward trend for five consecutive years, local authorities said Tuesday.
"The disease remains under control and stable in Yunnan," said Xu Yonggang, head of Yunnan Provincial bureau of AIDS prevention and control. "The continuous decline is partly due to fewer HIV transmission cases among intravenous drug users."
Xu warned unprotected sex contributed to the most of the HIV infections in Yunnan, which accounted for nearly 95 percent of the new cases. The percentage of infections by intravenous drug users, however, has fallen to about 4 percent this year, compared with 15.6 percent in 2012.
Yunnan had 105,600 people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of October, according to the provincial health commission. The province has established an HIV/AIDS prevention and testing network, covering both urban and rural areas.
HIV self-test kits are available at 50 drugstores in some prefectures and cities in Yunnan, allowing people to test for HIV infection via saliva samples in 20 minutes. Also, convenient HIV urine test kits can be found in some universities in the province.
