China’s first school for AIDS orphans

BEIJING: China’s first exclusive primary school for children affected by AIDS has been established in a hospital in northern Shanxi province.

Eight children aged from six to eleven attended the opening ceremony held on last Friday. All of them acquired AIDS through mother-to-child transmission and had lost their mothers. To make sure that such children get access to education, Linfen Hospital for Infectious Disease funded the primary school, called Red Ribbon Primary School, within its AIDS Treatment Centre, Xinhua news agency reported.

Using the same teaching material as used by other normal primary schools, Red Ribbon Primary School has been equipped with an adequate teaching facility as well as professional teachers and staff who can nurse the children. Currently, the school teaches curriculum from grade one to four.

All of the school’s students registered of their own free will. The hospital has said that it will provide free accommodations for those children who will be receiving regular treatment at the same time.

Linfen Hospital for Infectious Disease has treated over 300 AIDS patients including many children suffering from AIDS. By the end of 2005, there were more than 140,000 people infected with HIV in China.