Officials call for deeper China-US health collaboration

The long history of China and the United States collaborating to combat health challenges, especially infectious diseases, has yielded plenty of outcomes globally, and hopes are now high for deeper bilateral cooperation to address more health issues and promote health equity, experts and officials said.

During a video call in September with Loyce Pace, assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Department of Health, Cao Xuetao, deputy head of the National Health Commission, said the long-term cooperation between health authorities in China and the US has not only benefited the people of both countries, but has also brought improvements in other parts of the world.

Cao said that China is willing to work with the US to translate the consensus reached during a meeting between the two heads of state in Bali, Indonesia, last November into concrete actions, while upholding the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win collaboration.

"Health authorities in China and the US are expected to maintain regular communication, promoting cooperation in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, such as cancer, and strengthening coordination efforts on multilateral platforms, such as the World Health Organization, in order to advance building a global community of health for all," he was quoted as saying according to a notice released by the commission.

Pace said that cooperation programs between China and the US suit the interests of both sides. She also expressed willingness to deepen mutual exchanges and safeguard global health security.

A highlight of the China-US collaboration in the healthcare sector has been the partnership between their disease control facilities, spanning over four decades, the US embassy in China said in an article released in March.

In September 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the national public health agency of the US, and its Chinese counterpart — the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention — jointly launched a program aimed at controlling HIV/AIDS, unveiling a series of cooperation drives in the following years targeting other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza, polio, measles and hepatitis B as well as noncontagious illnesses.

Heads of the US and China centers have held 12 face-to-face meetings since, according to the US embassy article.

As an emerging power in global health, China has also worked with the US health agency to promote global health security. A fitting example is their joint efforts in supporting the establishment of a disease control center in Africa.

During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2014 to 2015, China sent 23 health personnel as part of an epidemiological training program. They worked with US disease control workers and those from around the world to provide technical assistance to tackle the outbreak.

Another highlight of the collaboration was the monitoring and handling of flu outbreaks, which culminated in the designation of the China National Influenza Center as a WHO Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza.

The designation, conferred by the WHO in 2010, was the fifth in the world and the first granted to a developing country.

Zhang Linqi, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Medicine and a leading scientist behind China's first antibody combination therapy for COVID-19, said that China-US cooperation has also contributed to the development of the treatment during the pandemic.

"The third and late stage of clinical trials for the treatment was rolled out in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health in the US due to a lack of suitable patients in China, which played an important role for us to obtain the final market approval," Zhang said during a recent forum held in Beijing.

"Comprehensive resources are essential behind the product's creation. We've learned from the process that prompt support, especially international support, is vital for the development of new drugs," he added.

Harvey Fineberg, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and former president of the US National Academy of Medicine, said during a recent forum held in Beijing that COVID-19 highlighted the significance of global equity in facing a pandemic.

He said the best global competition he could have envisioned is the US and China competing to save more lives and advance global equity.