Gates Foundation announces plans to establish Grand Challenges China Program

Through the core programs in China, the foundation will try to address critical health challenges and threats for the country.

Since 2009, in collaboration with the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the tuberculosis-control program in China has focused on developing and demonstrating innovative models that can help the country further reduce tuberculosis.

The model piloted in the program, which focused primarily on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, identified nine times more cases than the existing system, shortened the time required for diagnosis and the start of treatment by 90 percent, reduced premature discontinuation of treatment by 90 percent, and reduced patients' share of costs by 80 percent.

Since 2008, the foundation has worked with the central government and community organizations to expand HIV/AIDS prevention among those most at risk of infection and to provide care and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS.

Besides, through key partnerships, the foundation is working to support China as it takes on a more active international role, leveraging its resources and expertise in health and agriculture for the benefit of the world' s poorest people.

Through the Global Good, founded by Bill Gates and Intellectual Ventures, the foundation has worked with one of China's largest refrigeration companies, Aucma, to develop and manufacture a vaccine storage device that can keep vaccines at appropriate temperatures for a month or more.

The device can travel over rough roads and survive in harsh environments, making it ideal for rural areas and for outreach work, or as a stationary device at rural health posts. It has enough storage capacity to serve the ongoing needs of a community of about 6,000 people.

The foundation also invested $40 million in a partnership with China National Biotec Group and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) to conduct clinical trials of a Japanese encephalitis vaccine developed by China.

To date, more than 250 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed outside China. In 2015, Laos launched a campaign to vaccinate 1.5 million children.