Nations pledge to work more closely in fight against diseases

China pledged more intensified cooperation with Bangladesh, India and Myanmar to cope with the spread of infectious diseases over their borders at the first forum on disease control and prevention between the four countries that concluded on Saturday.

The forum was held in Mangshi, a city in southwest China's Yunnan province, which shares borders with Myanmar, a country with one of the highest rates of HIV in Asia. Yunnan is one of China's less-developed areas and also one of the worst-hit by the disease. The border areas of the four countries are also areas with higher incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and cholera.

Reports in June said that Chinese scientists in Yunnan had discovered a new strain of HIV with a complex structure. The strain derived from a blood sample of a Myanmar truck driver traveling across the Myanmar-China border in Yunnan, according to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.