China leads fight against AIDS

Country has the potential to eradicate the dreaded epidemic and the lessons learned can re-engineer HIV efforts across the world

World AIDS Day is a time when people around the world remember, rejoice and recommit to fighting for a cause. In China, many people, institutions, organizations and communities will do the same. On World AIDS Day, observed on Dec 1 every year, we remember the millions of people who have lost their lives to AIDS. But we can also rejoice at the incredible progress we have made together. Thanks to our joint efforts, new HIV infections globally have dropped almost 40 percent since 2001, and AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 35 percent since their peak in 2005.

Now, some 30 years since the virus first made headlines, we are making news of a different sort. There is growing consensus that we can end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 by scaling up interventions which have proved highly effective. If we act with speed, focus and determination we can avert 28 million new HIV infections and 21 million AIDS-related deaths by 2030.

This new hope makes it all the more important for countries and communities to recommit and redouble their efforts to eradicate this epidemic which has devastated so many lives. China as a world leader can lead the way.

China's influence is increasingly seen in many areas, including economics, politics, culture and development cooperation. The country is an innovator when it comes to health, making large investments in infrastructure and providing crucial services to the most remote areas of the country and even halfway around the globe in several African countries.

More than a decade ago, China began extending universal healthcare to its citizens, and free HIV testing and treatment very soon became part of the package. The approach to inclusion and leaving no one behind is speeding up social transformation in the country and helping African countries to do the same.