Beijing will install about 1,000 condom vending machines at hotels, bars, university campuses and construction sites around the Chinese capital this month to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The Beijing AIDS Prevention and Control Working Committee is cooperating with the Beijing AIDS Prevention Association, a nongovernmental organization, and a condom manufacturer on the program. It will initially be implemented in four central Beijing districts on a trial basis.

Customers may buy the condoms for 1 yuan (12 US cents) apiece.

Machines placed on college campuses will dispense yellow-colored condoms, to remind young people to exercise caution when having sex.

In hotels, the vending machines will be placed in discreet locations to avoid embarrassing purchasers.

Poor quality and sometimes unpackaged condoms made up nearly three quarters of the two billion condoms used in China last year. A Beijing Disease Control and Prevention Center official said that the vending machine condoms are guaranteed to be of good quality and reliable. The price is kept down, he said, because they are functional but not frivolous, omitting some of the features that more expensive products offer.

The new machines will supplement the capital's 1,700 existing vending machines, many of which are often out of service or empty. Guan Baoying, vice director of the city health bureau's disease control department, said that the older machines would be repaired this month.

China's official estimate puts the current number of HIV/AIDS cases at 840,000, but officials admit that current statistics are incomplete. Some experts say that at least 1 million poor farmers were infected in the central province of Henan alone as a result of selling blood at unlicensed collection stations that ignored proper procedures.

The United Nations has said that the number of AIDS victims in China could quickly rise to 10 million if serious action is not taken immediately.

Earlier this year, Vice Premier Wu Yi, who also heads the national committee for AIDS prevention, said that if no effective control measures are taken, "the consequences will be very grievous." She called on governments at all levels to accelerate and expand their work in this regard.

(China.org.cn October 11, 2004)