AIDS Policy: China’s Tipping Point

China’s pioneering AIDS researchers were not content simply to build up evidence about HIV and the programmes that might prevent its spread. From early on, they worked actively to get the nation’s leaders to pay attention to the threat that a widespread HIV epidemic would pose to the country. As early as 1996, an inter-ministerial body called the State Council Coordination Mechanism Committee for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention was created under the chairmanship of Vice Premier Li Lanqing. The State Council is the highest administrative body in China, and the coordinating mechanism was able to bring together 21 ministries, providing each with guidance on its roles and responsibilities, to work on HIV prevention.