Supporting China’s COVID-19 Response

Since the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have centered our work in China around responding to the virus. We recognize the enormous public health challenges posed by the virus domestically as well as China’s potential to play a central role in the global response. We are working with a wide range of partners in the Chinese government and health care system as well as private companies at the cutting edge of pharmaceutical and medical innovation to address the pandemic.

Emergency Response and Epidemic Control

In January 2020, within a week of the World Health Organization confirming human-to-human COVID-19 transmission, we urgently mobilized our own resources and the expertise of our partner networks to provide technical support for China’s epidemic response. This work included accelerating research into the epidemiology (the distribution, causes, and risk factors) of the disease, formulating emergency response strategies and implementation plans to slow and control the spread of the outbreak, and encouraging rapid product development in China’s pharmaceutical and medical products industry.

Product Development

We are providing technical support to our partners as they accelerate the development of appropriate diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics for COVID-19. We are also assisting them in identifying the required conditions for initiating mass production of candidate vaccines. Nine Chinese PCR tests were approved by WHO during 2020 under its Emergency Use Listing (EUL) mechanism, with one of the foundation’s partners supplying tests to WHO for use in low- and middle-income countries. Other advances made by foundation-supported projects include breakthroughs in the development of an antigen test.

Long-Term Systems Change

We are supporting China in strengthening both its primary health care system and its emergency response system for infectious diseases. We are using our global networks to facilitate and deepen international collaboration and promote sustained research and development investment in public health.

Global Collaboration

We are committed to ensuring equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other resources that will enable the poorest countries to protect their populations from COVID-19. We believe that global collaboration and multilateral partnerships will be crucial to ensuring this outcome, and we have been providing technical assistance to China as it steps up participation in these initiatives. We are also creating convening platforms to enable China to share its COVID-19 response experiences with international experts