非洲选美皇后帮助中国对抗艾滋病

You might not guess it, but this is the voice of a former beauty queen.

Just two years ago Emma Wareus was crowned Miss Botswana.

Now she's in Beijing with a delegation from her country to talk about the problem of AIDS.

"For me it's very close because I'm from a country that was named the highest percentage of people living with HIV and AIDS in the world. Not the highest population, but the highest percentage. Even though we have a low population we have the highest percentage. So it's something very close to me because I grew up with it. It was all around me. It's all I ever knew. Before I knew about cancer, before I knew about other diseases of the human body, I knew about HIV and AIDS."

In Botswana one in four of the population is living with HIV. But the country is making progress. For example the number of HIV infections among children dropped five times between 1999 and 2007.

The infection rate in China is relatively low at just zero point one percent of the population. But this still amounts to over 700 thousand people.

Guy Taylor works on the AIDS programme with the UN in China. He says protecting populations most at risk is still a major issue.

"…So we're talking men who have sex with men, low level sex workers, and these people are generally highly discriminated against and stigmatized. So obviously there's definitely a need to strengthen intervention amongst those groups who are the focus of where HIV transmission is happening in China."

Discrimination against those with HIV is a problem because it can stop people going for tests or admitting they have the disease. Emma Wareus says the key for China is public awareness.

"Let's make it an issue. Even though it's not really a lot of people in the country that live with it, let's make it an issue. Let's pretend as if it is. Because in that way we'll be able to compress it before it becomes an issue."

In 2009, 48 thousand people in China were infected with HIV, and around 26 thousand died because of the disease.

AIDS workers here hope more international collaboration can help lower these figures.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.