BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- While millions of
Chinese opened their wallets to the tsunami victims, twenty-one Chinese AIDS
patients joined them and donated 420 yuan (about 50 US dollars) Tuesday.
"Most of us are poor peasants and we don't have much money, butour hearts are with the victims," the patients, who
are from Linfen, a city in the northern province of Shanxi, said in a letter to
Red Cross Society of China and its Shanxi branch office.
"We want to make our humble contributions... We
sincerely wish people there would recover from the disaster soon and remain safe
and healthy," the letter said.
The patients, who are currently undergoing free
anti-retroviraltreatment in a city hospital, said they were grateful for the
careand help they had received from the government and society when they were in
need.
"The people's help improved our confidence in
fighting against the disease," they said.
Li Xuejun, an official from the Linfen Hospital of
Infectious Diseases, said the hospital helped the AIDS patients post the
donation to the provincial Red Cross Tuesday afternoon.
Zuo Tong, a senior staff from the provincial Red
Cross, confirmed that the hospital had called to ask how they could transfer the
donation to the Red Cross.
"We were touched. the AIDS patients themselves are in
difficulties and in need of help. Their sense of responsibility and care for
others are respectable," she told Xinhua over the phone.
According to the official web site of the Red Cross
Society of China, the donations and promised donations it has received so
farhave reached 20 million yuan (2.4 million US dollars). About 5.2 million yuan
has already been transferred to the International RedCross and relevant
organizations in affected countries.
The tsunamis triggered by December's strong
earthquake have reportedly claimed the lives of nearly 150,000 people in some
South and Southeast Asian countries. Last Friday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
announced that China would provide another 500 million yuan (60.46 million US
dollars) of humanitarian aid to the disaster-hit countries in addition to the
2.62 million US dollars already donated. Enditem
