Exiled China Aids activist Gao Yaojie has died in New York, aged 95
- Gao’s work made international headlines in the 1990s when she exposed the link between HIV and Henan province’s ‘plasma economy’
- While her efforts led to policy change and awards, Gao had embarrassed local officials and she left China in 2009
Gao’s death on Sunday was confirmed by Andrew J Nathan, the Columbia University political science professor who helped her during the years of exile from China, which she left in 2009.
Gao struggled in later years with spreading thrombosis, which made it difficult to walk without support.
Despite her declining health, Gao devoted her years in New York – where she lived in a one-bedroom Manhattan flat – to writing books about China’s handling of the Aids crisis.
Gao lost part of her stomach during the Cultural Revolution and could hardly eat anything but noodles and buns. Her hearing was also impaired and she spoke loudly with the heavy accent of her native Henan in central China.
After she was hospitalised for a week with pneumonia in 2016, Gao went online to express her wish to be cremated after death, and her ashes scattered on the Yellow River.
