Students in Linfen Red Ribbon School prepare for the national college entrance exam, May 25, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

For the first time, special test rooms will be set up for students with HIV/AIDS to sit the national college entrance exam, reported Shanxi Evening News on Wednesday.

Sixteen students from the Linfen Red Ribbon School will take the test, also known as gaokao, this month in two test rooms at the school.

"College will be a turning point in their lives. We hope society can be more inclusive and tolerant of them. HIV/AIDS is not scary," said Guo Xiaoping, head of the school, in an earlier report.

The Linfen Red Ribbon School is the country's only school that provides education for children with HIV. The school opened in 2004 as an informal classroom in a vacant ward at Linfen Third People's Hospital and was run by hospital director Guo Xiaoping.

With more HIV-positive children joining in the following years, the informal classroom has expanded to a 6 hectare campus, catering to 33 students. As well as education, the school also covers food and living expenses, and the cost of medical treatment.

Most of the children contracted HIV through mother-to-child transmission and have lost their mother.

In December 2011, the school was approved by local education authority to provide compulsory education.

There are about 654,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China, according to figures released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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