Finding Those at Risk, China’s Way

One of the people who heard Vice Premier Wu Yi’s plea for greater openness in the aftermath of the SARS epidemic was Li Keqiang, now China’s Premier but at the time the Party Secretary of Henan province. As we saw in Chap. 10.1007/978-981-10-3746-7_2, national specialists such as Xiwen Zheng estimated the number of HIV-infected plasma sellers in Henan at around 80,000, and activists were claiming ten times as many. However, provincial officials stuck stubbornly to an estimate of 10,000 infections. Backed by the central government’s renewed determination to find out the true extent of the epidemic, Li Keqiang encouraged his staff to do whatever was necessary to get to the truth.