China this week announced new measures to tackle its growing problem with tuberculosis (TB). On 1 April, health minister Chen Zhu and Bill Gates announced a partnership, supported by a 5-year US$33-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to pilot new diagnostic tests, monitoring strategies and treatments for the disease. The Chinese government will scale up the most effective of these trials.

A day earlier, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Gates-supported Global Alliance for TB Drug Development signed a partnership to search for anti-TB drugs among Chinese herbal medicines.

The announcements came at the start of a three-day meeting in Beijing, organized by the World Health Organization, where health officials from 27 countries are discussing how to control multidrug-resistant TB.