Cuicui and Xiaofan hold their marriage on the 12th International AIDS Anti-Discrimination Lunch Day annual lunch event in Linfen, North China's Shanxi Province on May 26, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of AHF

Their wedding has attracted the blessings of dozens of people who care about the couple's situation, including Wang Xinlun, Chairman of Chinese Association of STD and AIDS Prevention and Control.

At present, the Linfen Red Ribbon School is the only school in China dedicated to treating children who contracted HIV at birth. In 2012, Guo Xiaoping, the principal of the school, and Dr. Bao Yugang, vice president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Asia, jointly launched the project "526 International AIDS Anti-Discrimination Lunch Day," calling for an end to discrimination against those who are HIV/AIDS-positive in society. 

Nowadays, it has become one of the most influential global campaigns in the field of HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination. The project has attracted participates from nearly 80 cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and more than 40 countries and regions including India, Cambodia, the US, and South Africa.

The project was originally inspired by a wedding reception. 12 years ago, Liu Liping, a HIV-positive teacher at the Linfen Red Ribbon School, was invited to a friend's wedding. However, when she sat down, all the other guests at her table left. Only later did she know that other guests were worried that they would contract the disease through casual proximity to her. 

Therefore, Guo proposed the project to advocate the way of "sharing a table" to let the public know the correct information regarding AIDS prevention and treatment, and fight against discrimination caused by AIDS.

In fact, if people infected with HIV adhere to a course of prescribed treatment and maintain happy, normal lives, they too can get married and even have healthy, HIV-negative children. For patients who have discontinued treatment, returning to treatment is also a priority.

China has made a lot of efforts in AIDS prevention and control, and has made some progress in recent years. "Generally speaking, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China is under control," Han Mengjie, director of the Chinese CDC's National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, said at a meeting held by the National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases on May 19, reported by Caixin News.

The tally of HIV/AIDS cases reported in China increased every year from 1985 to a peak of more than 150,000 in 2019, but then dropped by about 13 percent during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to 107,000 in 2022, Han pointed out.

The transmission of HIV/AIDS through blood transfusions has essentially been mitigated, and no cases of transmission have been reported in the last three years. Mother-to-child transmission has also fallen to a record low, with the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV falling to 3 percent in 2022, he said.

China has set a target of reducing the indicator to less than 2 percent by 2025 to achieve the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV at the national level.

At the same time, the case detection rate continues to improve, increasing to 84.2 percent in 2022. The coverage rate of first treatment for AIDS cases has reached more than 90 percent.