China CDC head meets with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's chief representative in Beijing

Shen Hongbing, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), held an annual directors meeting with Zheng Zhijie, chief representative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation China Office, in Beijing on July 4. 

 

Shen conveyed thanks to the foundation for its long-term support of China's public health as an important international cooperative partner of the China CDC.

 

According to Shen, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the foundation, reaffirmed his personal commitment to public health during his recent visit to China, and stressed that the foundation looks forward to continuous cooperation with its Chinese counterparts on global health. This enables the annual meeting to yield more targeted outcomes, he said.

 

Shen said that the China CDC will attach more importance to the overall strategic design and sustainable development of project cooperation, and will leverage its professional strength to make contributions to both China's and global public health.

 

Acknowledging the progress of relevant cooperation projects, Zheng said that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will continuously pay attention to the prevention and control of major infectious diseases like tuberculosis (TB), malaria and polio, extend its support to China toward achieving its goal of eliminating TB by 2030, share Chinese experience and technologies with other countries in the fight against malaria, and facilitate the world’s efforts to end polio in the "last mile".

 

Zheng welcomed research teams from both sides to further expand the scope of their cooperation in such areas as tactics and strategies that are suitable for other developing countries in the prevention and control of contagious diseases and the organization of personnel training related to public health.

 

During their meeting, Shen and Zheng also held exchanges over the progress of cooperation concerning global public health, malaria, TB, planned immunization and children's nutrition, challenges and solutions in the implementation of those projects, and their cooperation plans in the future.

Over 20 experts from the China CDC attended the event.