Gao Yaojie broke the code of silence that allowed tens of thousands of people to be infected with tainted blood in China. She has been in the forefront of the fight against the disease but says China must do more. Placed under house arrest to stop her from going to the US to receive an award, she was finally freed because of international protests.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Gao Yaojie, China’s persecuted octogenarian anti-AIDS paladin, reiterated her criticism of the Chinese government’s AIDS polices from the United States where she is to receive an award.

“I feel ashamed for not being able to stop the spread of AIDS. I have failed and we as a nation have also failed,” she told a press conference at Washington's Georgetown University on Wednesday. “I wish I could do more. We as a nation must do more.”

Dr Gao was in the US capital to receive an international human rights award from the women's group Vital Voices. Her visit attracted worldwide attention because authorities in her home province of Henan had placed Dr Gao, also known as Grandma Courage, under house arrest in an attempt to prevent her from travelling to accept the award. Only an international outcry convinced Chinese President Hu Jintao to let her make the trip.

As she was presented with her award, the audience gave her a standing ovation. When the ceremony ended, some sought her autograph.

In Washington she also met many celebrities, including presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A retired gynaecologist, Dr Gao has been instrumental in exposing the spread of AIDS in Henan through blood sales in poor farming communities in the 1990s.

She also has adopted hundreds of orphans whose parents were killed by the disease. For her efforts, Henan officials have constantly harassed her and her family, unhappy that her actions exposed the role the public health system played in spreading the disease and causing the death of thousands of people.

Dr Gao described local officials as corrupt miscreants who only cared about making money. She explained that illegal blood sales in rural areas continue throughout the mainland, particularly in Guizhou and Guangdong.

“Many of the blood-selling centres operate in the middle of the night,” she said, adding that discrimination against AIDS sufferers remained a serious problem and such attitudes must change.

Dr Gao said she planned to publish two books about her fight against AIDS and on the lives of sufferers. She said a publisher had previously agreed to publish one of the books but the project was stopped when its editor was fired.

Her sister Gao Mingfeng, who lives in Chicago, is concerned about all the attention she is getting. “We are a bit worried about her,” she said. “We don't know how all this attention will affect her safety when she goes back to China.”

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