Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Associated Press - Friday, December 27, 2002
Xinhua did not say which drugs will be made, but said the price would be about a tenth that of imported drugs, which currently cost 30,000 yuan ($3,600) per person each year. The average annual income per person in China is $700.
China is making four types of AIDS drugs, Xinhua said Thursday, citing Health Minister Zhang Wenkang. It didn't say whether all four drugs would be mass-produced.
Chinese health officials say 1 million people are infected with the AIDS virus.
Health experts say that could rise to 10 million by the end of the decade.
In September, the Health Ministry denied news reports that it was planning to produce AIDS drugs in violation of foreign patents but said it wants deeper discounts on prices of imported drugs.
China has begun treating patients with a domestically produced version of the anti-AIDS drug AZT, for which patents recently expired.
The ministry says 10 more Chinese firms have applied for permission to make generic versions of anti-AIDS drugs with expired patents, and might be producing them by the end of the year.
The disease has been spread mostly by sharing needles for injecting drugs.
Thousands of other people have been infected through unsanitary blood-buying rings, where operators reinjected sellers with pooled blood after removing the plasma, making it possible for one infected person to pass the virus to dozens of others.
The government has responded by announcing a ban on the plasma trade and said it is creating standard blood banks for donors.
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