The People's Republic of China's first reported AIDS case was identified in 1985 in a dying tourist. In 1989, the first indigenous cases were reported as an outbreak in 146 infected heroin users in Yunnan province, near China's southwest border.

Gao Yaojie was a Chinese gynecologist, academic, and AIDS activist based in Zhengzhou, Henan, China. Gao was honoured for her work by the United Nations and Western organizations whilst spending time under house arrest. Her split with the Chinese authorities on the transmission and the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic in the People's Republic of China hindered her further activities, and she left for the United States in 2009, where she settled in Manhattan, New York.