The initiative is part of the Global AIDS Program, which is currently focusing on 25 countries including China.

It targets 10 provinces, including central China's Henan which has been hit by a major AIDS outbreak from farmers selling blood in unsafe government-run schemes.

In the next five years, the US CDC's China office and China's CDC will work together to use the funding to prevent HIV infections, and improve treatment, care and support.

One goal is to help China address the key problem of not knowing how many cases of HIV/AIDS there are in the country and finding the people who are infected but are not aware they have the disease.

The government estimates there are 840,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS, but international experts believe the total number of infections is much higher and have warned there could be 10 million cases by 2010.

Many officials have no idea how many cases exist in their areas and those that do are reluctant to reveal them for fear of the economic consequences.

"Even though China's overall numbers is less than that of the United States ... based on our estimate, only 10 percent of the patients in China know they are infected," Ray Yip, director for the US CDC in China said at a launch ceremony Tuesday.

"That means 90 percent of China's HIV/AIDS patients don't know they have HIV/AIDS and each day that they don't know, they can infect others."

In contrast, about 70 percent of those infected in the United States know they have the disease.

Yip said a crucial task for China was finding the people infected so that they do not transmit the disease.

"I've heard from several provinces. They didn't think they had a problem. Once they tested people, they found 30 percent infection rates in some areas and they were shocked," Yip said.

Results from HIV testing are sometimes kept for official use and individuals are not informed, according to a CDC statement. Without sufficient anti-retroviral treatments, local officials are reluctant to test people or inform them for fear they would demand free treatment.

Intense fear and discrimination among the public and health workers also hampers efforts to test and care for patients, it said.

While China's top leadership has shown greater attention to AIDS in the past year, more commitment is needed, the CDC said.

"China can still prevent HIV/AIDS from reaching catastrophic proportions," US Ambassador Clark Randt told the ceremony's audience of mainly Chinese health officials.

"However, an HIV/AIDS catastrophie can only be avoided if China responds now urgently and forcefully with sufficient resources to stem this deadly tide."

Other provinces targeted in the program are: Anhui, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing.

A Guangdong health official said he hoped the funding will help the province raise public awareness about AIDS.

"Publicity is a problem. We've requested TV stations do more public service announcements, but we can't pay them for it, so they don't," said the official who declined to be named.

Without support and awareness, high risk behaviors continue.

"We have 200,000 drug addicts in Guangdong, 15 percent of whom are women. But out of that 15 percent, 80 percent have multiple sex partners," he said.

TERRA.WIRE