Anti-Aids private organizations in China are folding up their free services following the 2011 pull out of financial support by international agency Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

From 2002 until 2011, the Global Fund gave China multiple grants totalling $804 million but had stopped its financial support in 2012 after the World Bank reclassified China as an upper middle income country.

Like Us on Facebook

Global Fund had required the participation of anti-Aids private organizations before it could give project grants, and now that the agency has left, the organizations have been tremendously affected, including their HIV intervention program and their efforts to help those afflicted with the disease in general.

Ren Minghu, chief of the Chinese National Health and Family Planning, said around 1,000 private Chinese organizations working to combat HIV/AIDS have been handed project grants by Global Fund amounting to hundreds of thousands of yuan in the past.

To date, more than 40 percent of the organizations in China have ceased operations because of lack of financial means, putting more people at risk of the disease.

"That put an end to many HIV control initiatives," said Cheng Xiang, director of Beijing Rena'i Group, which works for the prevention of AIDS among gay people.

"Many of the private organizations are the work of people from susceptible groups, such as gay men and prostitutes, so they have an advantage over the health authority in reaching out with intervention to those at high risk," he pointed out.

Xiao Dong, leader of the anti-AIDS group China Rainbow, said that as part of their advocacy, they have been promoting safe sex among gay men in gay bars, distributing free condoms and lubricants as well as rapid testing.

Dong said their campaign to promote safe sex in gay bars proved easy because members of the group are mostly gay, and one of them. He said the government couldn't do that type of approach and so they are appealing to the government to help their cause by providing financial support.

The anti-Aids organizations have reported that HIV/AIDS have hit gay men the hardest, accounting for more than 85 percent of new diagnosis in big cities in China.

The World Bank's reclassification of 28 countries from low to middle income level has hurt the organization's services as they face higher prices of AIDS drugs, a reduced budget and a big cut on financial aid.

Tagshiv aids, Global Fund to Fight Aids