Ma Xiaowei, vice minister of health, visited a group of children whose parents have died of AIDS at China's first summer camp for the orphans Thursday, on behalf of Vice-Premier Wu Yi.

The summer camp is cosponsored by the China Youth Concern Committee, foundation for the prevention of sexual transmitted infections and AIDS, and the UNICEF. It has 72 members from Shanxi, Jilin, Sichuan, Henan and Yunnan provinces.

These children have expressed their hope to meet the vice premier who has visited families affected by AIDS in a village in Henan at the end of last year.

Currently, there are 37.8 million Aids patients or HIV-carriers in the world and 15 million children whose parents have died of the disease.

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2004)