Most epidemiologists agree that HIV spread through China in three distinct phases (10) . The first phase (the entry phase) occurred between 1985 and 1988, involving a small number of imported cases, and was officially viewed as a 'foreign' problem (4) . In 1987, China's Health Minister suggested the disease might be curtailed because sexual promiscuity and homosexuality were limited. HIV infected foreigners were subsequently banned from living in China, and it was also noted that it was illegal for Chinese citizens to have sex with foreigners (10) . The second phase (the spreading phase) occurred between 1989 and 1993, with the detection of HIV cases among minority groups from Western province communities that bordered Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam (4) . The third phase (the expansion phase) seems to have begun around 1994 (4), although several aspects of the 'expansion phase' and the 'spreading phase' were probably overlapping. In 1995, an article appeared in the scientific literature describing a mother and her two daughters who had become HIV infected after donating plasma (11) . This was followed by a Chinese newspaper story in 2000 titled 'Strange disease in a Henan village shocks top officials,' and one which later appeared on the US Embassy web site (12) .