On 13 October, the State Council published a national plan for the control and containment of AIDS for the years 2019-2022 (《遏制艾滋病传播实施方案（2019-2022年）》). The responsible ministry is the National Health Commission (NHC 卫健委), and nine other ministries or departments of the central government are involved, including the Ministry of Education MOE and the Ministry of Science and Technology MOST.
At the end of 2018, there were 1.25 million HIV-infected persons registered in China; in 2017 alone, around 135,000 new registrations were made. The estimated number of unreported cases is at least 30%. The plan sets out a number of goals: to reduce the transmission of mothers to babies to below 4% of new infections, and to inform more than 95% of all students about the diagnosis of HIV and its transmission routes.
According to a blog, between July and September 2018 about 80% of all deaths from infectious diseases were due to HIV. The Chinese Association of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS Prevention and Control (中国性病艾滋病防治协会) reported that since April 2018, 10 universities have installed a total of 22 HIV diagnostic machines on campus. Only a coded urine sample has to be placed in the vending machine. The urine donor then receives the results online and anonymously within the next 3 to 5 working days. In one month 59 kits were sold and 37 samples returned, two of which were HIV positive.
GTAI PharmaUpdate October 2019
(contributions of Dr Xin XIONG are gratefully acknowledged)