The ninth meeting of the cooperation committee of Sino-US cooperative project for new emerging and re-emerging contagious diseases was held in Beijing on December 8. Representatives from the NHFPC’s Department of International Communication; Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control; Bureau of Medical Administration; Department of Health Science, Technology and Education; the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the US Food and Drug Administration; the US National Institutes of Health and the US Embassy in China attended the meeting.

The meeting reported the project’s annual progress (2013-2014), the fund management situation and approved important yearly plans (2014-2015). Through nine-year-cooperation, China and the US saw achievements in cooperative research, monitoring and handling contagious diseases, including handling H5N1 avian influenza in 2004, H1N1 influenza in 2009, H7N9 avian influenza in 2013 and Ebola hemorrhagic fever in 2014. The meeting agreed that China and the US will renew the memorandum of understanding on the cooperative project of new emerging and re-emerging contagious diseases in 2015.

The annual conference of the Sino-US cooperative project of new emerging and re-emerging contagious diseases was also held on December 8. The conference had five themes, including Ebola handling and proposal for global health safety, monitoring for respiratory infectious disease, diseases assessment, new emerging and re-emerging diseases monitoring, and handling and hospital infection investigation.

The memorandum of understanding on the cooperative project of new emerging and re-emerging contagious diseases was signed by China and US health departments in October 2005. The second five-year-long memorandum of understanding was renewed in 2010 and will expire in 2015.