HEFEI -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited people living with HIV/AIDS and thanked workers dealing with the disease in the eastern Anhui Province over the weekend.

Wen told a special symposium composed of AIDS experts and grassroots medical workers in Funan County, that government funds for prevention and control would increase year-by-year.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao shakes hands with an AIDS patient on bed while talking with him in a medical service center in Funan county, east China's Anhui province November 30, 2008. [Xinhua]

The Ministry of Health said on Sunday that 264,302 people in China were reported to contract HIV, of whom there were 77,753 AIDS patients, by the end of September, while 34,864 people died of AIDS.

However, according to a joint estimation of the ministry, UNAIDS and WHO, there were some 700,000 Chinese living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007.

Wen said anti-viral medication should be listed in the country's basic medicine catalogue.

He went on to say AIDS control and prevention was "of vital importance" as it was directly linked to the lives and health of the masses. Efforts should be strengthened in high-incidence regions and within specific groups, Wen said.

"The Chinese people are proven to have the confidence, resolution and ability to do a good job of AIDS prevention and control."

The premier stressed that various Party committees and governments should put the AIDS issue at the top of agendas and ensure that policies really benefited patients and their families.

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