Global Health Progress

Global Health Progress: Access to Healthcare and Innovative Solutions to Improving Health in China

As in other countries around the world, China’s population faces the challenge of debilitating and deadly infectious and chronic diseases. In China, the HIV infection rate has been rising sharply, making HIV/AIDS the country’s leading cause of death among infectious diseases. China has the second largest number of tuberculosis cases in the world, and its levels of drug-resistant tuberculosis are nearly twice the global average. More than half the population (700 million Chinese) has had hepatitis B, and the number of patients with diabetes is growing faster in China than anywhere else in the world. The country’s estimated 35 million to 40 million diabetics now constitute 20 percent of the world’s total.

Building sustainable, innovative solutions to this serious situation and improving access to healthcare calls for joint action among local leaders and diverse global stakeholders. Global Health Progress is committed to working with leaders in China to strengthen collaboration with research-based biopharmaceutical companies and other global health leaders to reduce the burden of disease and strengthen health systems in China. 

China’s leaders have recognized the need to ensure safe, efficient, affordable access to healthcare for all of its citizens. Ensuring access to quality health services and an ability to rapidly respond to public health emergencies, such as the avian flu, is a priority. While patient assistance programs for patented and unpatented medicines have helped reduce barriers to access to medicines, they have limited impact if challenges within a health system work to keep the medicine from reaching patients. Partnerships between industry and government are essential to effectively reach patients and meet healthcare objectives.

Partnering to Find Sustainable Solutions

Chinese leaders have successful and long-standing collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies and other international partners. The examples described  in the full report demonstrate the progress made and the potential for new initiatives. To view the full report click here.

Global Health Progress

Leaders in China face complex health challenges with limited local resources. Biopharmaceutical companies have worked with the Chinese government, Chinese organizations, international agencies, and local leaders for decades in building effective, sustainable programs to address many of these challenges and improve the health of Chinese citizens. Given this shared commitment, the potential for greater collaboration, and the desire to do more, biopharmaceutical companies formed Global Health Progress.

Global Health Progress provides a platform for companies, governments, public health leaders, universities, foundations, and other stakeholders to share experiences and best practices and to forge new partnerships. Global Health Progress also supports efforts to raise awareness and mobilize resources to address health challenges in the developing world by bringing local leaders together with international health experts, policymakers, donor governments, and the private sector.