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Beijing, China (AHN) - China has approved importing a new drug for HIV patients.
China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) on Friday announced the country's approval of importation of a new drug, which was developed by United States-based pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories to treat patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The new drug called Lopinavir/ritonavir that is used in combination with other medicines, has been widely used in other countries such as the US, Japan and Europe and has so far shown significant clinical effects in treating HIV carriers. In the past two years, China has registered an alarming rise in the number of people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) with a growth rate recorded at about 30 percent. Figures from the Ministry of Health showed that some 650,000 people in China carried HIV as of Dec. 2005. Health officials further noted that the estimates could have blown up at present as they warned that the virus could seem to be "spreading from high-risk groups to the general public." In the capital Beijing alone, the Municipal Health Bureau registered 973 new HIV/AIDS cases in the first 10 months of 2007, which is an increase of roughly 53 percent compared to the previous year.
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China Pharma News 