China AIDS Initiative

Completed Programs

President Bill Clinton with China’s AIDS ambassador Pu Cunxin and David Ho.

Since its creation in 2003, CAI’s partner organizations have completed successful programs in four primary areas: Advocacy, Professional Training, Antiretroviral Treatment, and Orphans and Vulnerable Children.

Advocacy

AIDS Summit

The China AIDS Summit, CAI’s first advocacy activity, took place in Beijing in November 2003 after more than a year of planning by ADARC and Tsinghua University. The Summit gave Bill Clinton a platform to deliver powerful messages on HIV awareness and prevention directly to the Chinese public via television, internet, newspapers, and radio. President Clinton’s dramatic embrace of an HIV+ activist raised consciousness throughout China and helped build political will among senior leaders for a stronger national response, which began in December 2003.

Public Service Announcements and National Poster Campaign

In 2004, CAI and the National Basketball Association enlisted China’s most famous athlete, Yao Ming, and HIV+ superstar Magic Johnson, to contribute their time to film a series of public service announcements (PSAs). The PSAs have been widely promoted, playing on national and local channels, trains and buses, and in high and middle schools.

CAI developed a national poster campaign featuring Yao Ming and Magic Johnson to convey prevention and anti-stigma messages. The campaign targeted rural populations that are difficult to access via television and the web. Posters showing the NBA superstars eating together, playing ball and celebrating were disseminated nationwide.

Media Training on HIV/AIDS

CAI supported a series of media training workshops organized by Tsinghua University, to give journalists and editors knowledge and skills to inform the public about HIV/AIDS. Workshops took place all over China, and in 2006 a group of Chinese health reporters traveled to Toronto to cover the XVI International AIDS Conference.

National AIDS Hotline

In 2004 CAI helped China’s Ministry of Health prepare a strategic plan for a unified national infectious disease and emergency response hotline, with HIV/AIDS as its focus. A team supported by CAI visited the US to learn about the most advanced technology and software for call centers, training approaches for front line responders, and management systems.

Public Policy Training

CAI partner Tsinghua University organized with Harvard University a series of public policy workshops for officials charged with managing China’s front-line response to HIV/AIDS. This in-service training provides decision-makers intensive exposure to national and international best practices in prevention, treatment and care, galvanizing local officials to translate the central government’s directives into informed, responsive practices.

Regional Campaigns

CAI committees in Hong Kong, California and New York have organized several successful events to raise funds for future programs, and as importantly raise awareness among community leaders. Yao Ming’s appearance at CAI’s 2005 Hong Kong gala was especially noteworthy because it captured the attention of millions of vulnerable youth and engaged business and government leaders in the fight against AIDS.

CAI volunteers mobilize to reverse the epidemic in California, New York and Hong Kong. Yao Ming at CAI’s 2005 Hong Kong gala.

Professional Training

AIDS Research Centers

In 2003 CAI and ADARC helped the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) establish the AIDS Research Center (ARC), whose mission is to create a coordinating center within CAMS to direct China’s research and treatment efforts in HIV/AIDS. CAMS and ADARC have collaborated on numerous professional training projects. With help from ADARC, the ARC has pursued three main areas of training to build the health system’s capacity to respond to the AIDS epidemic, especially in rural areas. CAI has also helped establish AIDS research centers at Tsinghua University in Beijing and at Hong Kong University.

Nationwide Physicians Training

The ARC has been a pioneer in training physicians at rural hospitals to care for and treat patients living with HIV and AIDS. When the government announced its free treatment program in 2003, only a handful of doctors in China had experience with antiretroviral therapy. More limiting than access to drugs was the lack of qualified medical and technical personnel to deliver care and treatment, especially in rural areas where the need is greatest. CAI developed a physician’s network that reaches across China and applied an innovative training curriculum that focuses less on theory and more on practical, clinical experience. A number of provincial and municipal hospitals initiated their treatment programs as a direct result.

HIV/Hepatitis C Co-Infection Training

The high prevalence of HIV and hepatitis C virus co-infection poses enormous challenges to medical practitioners in China. The two diseases share modes of transmission from injection drug use, contaminated blood products, and sexual contact. With technical assistance from ADARC, CAMS’ AIDS Research Center has developed a specialized curriculum to give health care professionals the tools to respond: up to date medical information, and training in blood collection and laboratory techniques.

Bioethics

With training from ADARC, the ARC set up an Institutional Review Board (IRB) including doctors, sociologists, public health practitioners, and bioethicists to protect human subjects in its programs. The IRB has been registered and approved by the U.S. Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in the Department of Health & Human Services. The ARC is also promoting Community Advisory Boards to encourage communication among HIV+ members of the community and healthcare workers, local leaders/policymakers, law enforcement, religious leaders, the media and NGOs, and to enhance community understanding of the ethical dimensions of treatment and care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Antiretroviral Treatment

pMTCT-Plus Program

In 2005 CAI launched a diagnosis and treatment initiative to prevent Mother-To-Child Transmission (pMTCT) while simultaneously providing antiretroviral therapy for the mother (the “+” in MTCT-Plus.) CAI mobilized experts from overseas and within China to introduce this model of care and treatment. In 2005 the program was piloted in Hubei province, with a team of trainers from Columbia, Yale, and ADARC in collaboration with Wuhan University and Hubei health authorities. CAI is expanding this model to Yunnan, with the goal of rapidly implementing the protocol that provides both treatment for the mother and prophylaxis for the baby, systematic application of which can decrease MTCT from 33% to below 2%.

Antiviral Regimen Trials

ADARC worked closely with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) to conduct studies that have established its AIDS Research Center as one of the leading clinical research institutes in China working on HIV/AIDS. To date the ARC has conducted seven clinical trials of antiretroviral regimens, with ADARC providing technical input. Recent research is focused on defining the drug resistant profiles in Chinese patients.

Molecular Epidemiology Studies

ADARC and CAMS also collaborated on several molecular epidemiology studies, in cooperation with the Yunnan Center for Disease Control, Wuhan University, and Henan Bureau of Health. It is clear from these studies that multiple subtypes of HIV and genotypes of Hepatitis C virus have already been introduced into China, primarily from bordering countries. Multiple recombinant forms between various subtypes have also been identified. Increasing prevalence of multiple subtypes will raise the possibility of inter-subtype recombination, posing further difficulties for future treatment and vaccine studies.

These programs build on ADARC’s work to establish China’s first antiretroviral treatment program in partnership with the Yunnan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, initiated in 2003 for 80 patients in Kunming with Dr. Zhou Zengquan and Dr. Lu Lin.

Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Compassionate Care

Although CAI focuses on preventing transmission of the virus from mother to child, we cannot forget those children who are already affected or infected by HIV.

From 2006–2009 we supported Fuyang AIDS Orphans Salvation Association (FAOSA), a unique community-based organization that serves over 500 orphans and vulnerable children in Anhui and Henan. The organization provides financial, educational, and psychosocial support to the children and their caregivers. For HIV+ children, FAOSA helps manage their medical care, ensuring routine check ups and laboratory tests and educating caregivers about the importance of helping children adhere to their complex drug regimens.

In 2007 ADARC supported Brandeis University to develop a community-based program that trains lay counselors to address the depression that overwhelms many children impacted by HIV. Initial results of the program are promising, with a measurable decrease in anxiety among participants.

ADARC helped build a community center to house programs serving orphans and vulnerable children in Longchuan County, Yunnan, and also supported monthly group activities there. In addition, ADARC provided donated drugs for a young girl who was the first documented case of mother-to-child transmission in Yunnan.