Basketball star
Yao Ming featured in China AIDS awareness campaign

NBA star Yao Ming has joined a campaign to combat the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS in China by being featured in posters together with people from AIDS-affected communities, the United Nations said Wednesday.

In the posters, which carry the message "HIV/AIDS will not affect our friendship," the 7-foot 6-inch China-born Houston Rockets player is seen standing with a group of children and signing autographs.

Also appearing in the "We Are Friends" campaign is Chinese film star and anti-AIDS spokesman Pu Cunxin, the United Nations Development Program said in a statement

HIV gained a foothold in China largely due to tainted blood transfusions in hospitals and schemes to buy blood plasma, where it was collected using unsanitary means.

After years of denying that AIDS was a problem, Chinese leaders have shifted gears dramatically in recent years, confronting the disease more openly and promising anonymous testing, free treatment for the poor, and a ban on discrimination against people with the virus.

"We trust this campaign will help disseminate our common stand for positive action, care, and full integration of people living with HIV and AIDS in our global society," Alessandra Tisot, UNDP senior deputy resident representative in China, said in the statement.

The campaign involves the distribution of more than 200,000 of the posters throughout China, a mini-documentary, the development of a resource kit and other projects, the statement said.

The posters' messages will appear in Chinese as well as the ethnic minority languages of Tibetan, Uighur, and Jingbo, it said. (AP)