Chinese health minister Chen Zhu (L) signs the Memorandum  on the Understanding of Collaboration of Tuberculosis Prevention with Bill Gates, founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Beijing, capital of China, on April 1, 2009. (Xinhua photo)

"This partnership with China comes at a critical time in the world's response to tuberculosis," said Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the foundation. "TB is an increasing threat because of gaps in the way the disease is diagnosed and treated. This partnership will help cut off drug resistance at its source by applying innovative approaches to strengthen basic TB control."

The deal comes at a crucial time in the nation's grave battle against TB, with China one of the worst hit by the current multiple drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) epidemic, according to the World Health Organization.

The country accounts for 14 percent of the world's overall TB cases and up to 22 percent of its drug-resistant cases, with about 130,000 deaths from the disease each year. Of the 120,000 reported cases of MDR-TB each year, eight out of 10 patients are from rural areas and the majority are young people, say the Ministry of Health.

But Gates hailed China's efforts to combat the disease by "taking the threat of TB very seriously", while ministry figures showed it detected and treated 6.42 million TB patients between 2001 and 2008.

By the end of last year, the government had invested a total of 2.16 billion yuan ($310 million) in TB prevention and control, said the ministry.

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Editor:Yang Jie