Vending machines in Tsinghua University start selling HIV test kits
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China Plus, November 16, 2017
Tsinghua University in Beijing has installed vending machines that sell HIV test kits on its campus, reports Beijing Youth Daily.
The test kits are priced at 30 yuan (around 4.5 USD) each, only about one tenth of the market price.
Through the vending machines, students can buy the test kits, have their urine tested at medical institutions and review the results online. The entire process is anonymous.
On Monday, the first day of the machines' installation, all of the test kits were sold out.
Tsinghua University is the latest higher education institution in Beijing to add the test kits to their vending machines. Previously, 11 other universities in Beijing's Haidian District had begun offering the product.
The local disease control and prevention center says that all the universities in the district will have vending machines carrying the test kits by the end of next year.
"The move also creates an opportunity to promote HIV prevention awareness. The effect we want to achieve is that young people will run the test before having sex and not the other way around," says Jiang Chu, head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Haidian.
The percentage of new HIV infections among Chinese students between the ages of 15 and 24 had risen from 5.77% in 2008 to 16.58% in 2014, according to statistics released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
