The number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV), new HIV infections, and deaths due to HIV in China were estimated. These data provided evidences for the analysis on current HIV/AIDS epidemic in China, development of AIDS prevention and control strategies and public health education. However, whether the estimation results could be fully used in practice depends on appropriate interpretation. Since the differences in estimation methods and data to produce the estimates for each year, it is not suitable to directly use the estimation results of different years to conclude the HIV/AIDS epidemic trends. The 2018 estimation results indicated that the number of PLHIV is already beyond one million by the end of 2018 and would keep growing, causing much pressure of for HIV/AIDS prevention and control. With the increased burden of case management, innovative strategies are needed to reduce secondary transmission of HIV and control the aggravating spread to general population. Less than 70%, which is significantly lower than the goal of China’s 13th Five-year Action plan for AIDS prevention and control. All local governments have the necessity of analyzing percentage of PLHIV who know their status, to conduct targeted strategies and measures for the improvement of HIV case finding. New HIV infection is the core indicator for HIV epidemic evaluation. The number of estimated new HIV infections is around 80 000 in 2018. It is necessary to further improve the strategy and increase the intensity to effectively reduce the new infection of HIV.

AIDS; Estimation; Interpretation