The national HIV surveillance program

Abstract

Early in China’s HIV epidemic, officials and health authorities relied solely on case reporting to monitor the epidemic. However, since a majority of cases were diagnosed very late, the information case reporting provided was outdated and had limited utility. Thus, in 1995, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was tasked with developing a network of sentinel surveillance sites to improve epidemic monitoring. Over time, this network evolved and expanded and today, it encompasses integrated sentinel and behavioral surveillance with nationwide coverage among 12 high-risk populations. Methods have been improved and refined over time, surveillance for antiretroviral drug resistance has been added, and substantial work in developing estimates of risk group population size has further helped to improve the quality of the information provided by what has become China’s National HIV Surveillance Program.