The HIV epidemics in China started among IDUs in border region in late 1980s, followed by the 2nd wave in the paid plasma donors in central China in the mid 1990s, and the 3rd wave of sexual transmission at the turning of the century. Both hetero-sexual and homosexual transmission have taken more than half of the total reported HIV infections since 2007. Chinese government has launched an impressive AIDS prevention campaign, with strong support from international communities, and foundations such as Global Fund and the Gates Foundation. Various intervention packages, including condom promotion, methadone substitutions and needle exchange programs are conducted. Even though a lot of progress has been made, the current AIDS control strategies are still not effective enough to significantly block the epidemic spreading from high risk groups to the general population. Most all the best practices for AIDS prevention are developed by other countries, which may not fit to the local environments and some of the current programs are lacking long term sustainability. There is urgent need to develop new strategies through research and international collaboration addressing the scientific and policy challenges facing China's AIDS control efforts.

The presentation will discuss some of the challenges and provide examples of the type of researches needed to overcome those technical obstacles. Those research areas include new techniques of measuring the epidemic and its trends, a strategy to use HIV drug surveillance data to support public health approach ART program, as well as using mathematic model to design comprehensive and sustainable prevention, treatment and care program, targeting both the epidemic and its roots. Shown by the model's simulation the new strategy will lead to effectively control the prevalence and incident of HIV/AIDS in the high epidemic region within 10 years. Finally the presentation will discuss the innovative research strategy moving HIV vaccine design to clinical trials as well as how to strengthen national, regional and international cooperation towards an effective vaccine.