Speech by CS at AIDS Free Charity Trail Run starting ceremony (with photos/video)
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Good morning everybody. Good morning Dr C H Leong(Chairman of the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, Dr Leong Che-hung), members of the AIDS Foundation.
AIDS has long been a global public health concern since its emergence over three decades ago. Nowadays in Hong Kong, homosexual contact between men is the main route of HIV transmission. In fact, of the 692 newly reported cases in 2016, 441 or 63.7 per cent actually were men to men. This is something that we should be concerned about. At the same time we also notice an escalating trend of more young people being infected in recent years. All these really called for concerted efforts on everybody's part in Hong Kong to put up a good fight against AIDS.
The Hong Kong SAR Government is fully committed to the prevention and control of AIDS infection. Since 1980s when the first case was reported in Hong Kong, we have been providing free, anonymous and confidential testing services. Anti-retrovirals are now provided to all those infected. The AIDS Trust Fund is also in place to support various non-governmental organisations to provide supporting services to people living with AIDS.
Of course, Government's effort alone is certainly not enough. We need community support and on this particular aspect, I must pay tribute, warm tribute to Dr C H Leung and his organisation, the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, for doing excellent jobs since 1991 in this direction. Today's charity run is the first-of-its-kind and I am sure it will go a long way to raise public awareness on AIDs. Let us all join hands in Hong Kong to build an inclusive and supportive environment for all infected HIV residents in this city.
May I wish you a very pleasant walk and particularly in the process of spreading words of inclusiveness about HIV infected victims in Hong Kong.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the speech.)
Ends/Saturday, January 13, 2018
Issued at HKT 12:06
Issued at HKT 12:06
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