In the Henan province in China:
In the mid 1990's the communist party authorities in Henan encouraged poor rural farmers to sell their blood.
Mobile collection units toured rural villages.
Millions of villagers took up the call.
But the blood collectors ignored even the most basic standards of hygiene.
Dirty equipment was used over and over. Donor blood was mixed together, the plasma removed, and then what remained pumped back into the donors blood streams.
HIV spread out of control through the whole blood collection system.
No-one for sure how many people were infected, at least 500,000, maybe more.
And this is what the Chinese government is doing about it:
Having infected so many of its own people, China's communist rulers are now doing everything they can to stop the outside world from finding out.
My trip to Shuang Miao was unapproved, illegal.
The people who took me there did so at great risk to their own safety. Villagers told me they had been warned by local officials not to talk to the media, that the Aids situation in Henan was a state secret.
The brave few who have spoken out are constantly harassed and threatened, some have ended up in jail.
And while it continues to deny the Aids crisis in Henan, the communist party is leaving the victims to die.
In Shuang Miao all the villagers I met had one request.
"Can you get us medicine?" they begged. "Please, we need medicine."
Last week with much fanfare China's health minister announced plans to provide free anti-Aids drugs to all of China's poor Aids victims.
But in Shuang Miao village there is not sign of them.
"They are waiting for us to die," one villager told me. "Once we are all dead their problem will be solved".
