China less prone to discriminate over HIV: survey

China's migrant workers are less prone to discriminate against people infected with HIV/AIDS after a massive campaign to inform people about the condition, a survey found.

The three-year project, launched in 2007 by the International Labour Organization and the US and Chinese labour departments, covered 50 million rural migrant workers, said the impact assessment survey, released late Monday.

Among the 250,000 workers who participated in 29 programmes in Guangdong province in the south, Yunnan in the southwest and Anhui in the east, 84 percent said they did not mind working with people living with HIV, it said.

That represented a sharp increase from 40 percent in a survey of the workers conducted before the campaign started.

China's migrant workers, who have left their hometowns for better job opportunities in cities, are at particular risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, the China Daily said Tuesday.

This is because a higher-than-average proportion visit prostitutes, while condom usage is also low, according to the paper.

Officially, China had 276,630 AIDS cases as of the end of 2008 and 38,100 deaths, but experts say the true figure is much higher.

UNAIDS estimates that between 30 and 50 million people may be at risk from the condition in China, where transmission through sexual activity is becoming more common.

China has roughly 140 million migrant workers, who often engage in dirty or dangerous jobs that city dwellers do not want.