Contributions of international cooperation projects to the HIV/AIDS response in China

Sun, Jiangping; Liu, Hui; Li, Hui; Wang, Liqiu; Guo, Haoyan; Shan, Duo; Bulterys, Marc; Korhonen, Christine; Hao, Yang; Ren, Minghui

The World Health Organization (WHO) was the earliest international organization to assist China. WHO initially provided 500 000 USD to support HIV testing reagents and equipment in eight cities in 1988. Then, in 1993, WHO assisted in the planning of the initial HIV/AIDS surveillance program. 3 Following the WHO activities, advocacy, education and surveillance efforts were launched. The first large international project was one million USD from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for training in Yunnan province. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the European Union (EU), the Australian Red Cross, and other international organizations and international NGOs had activities focusing on HIV/AIDS monitoring, advocacy and training in 12 cities. The programmes also supported media campaigns on HIV/AIDS prevention and control. Exploratory work was carried out in the area of stigma and discrimination reduction. For example, UNICEF supported the 'Unite For youth, Unite Against AIDS' global campaign, in which a couple of young students were chosen to be the youth ambassadors to join activities for promoting AIDS awareness in universities.