Edited by: Prof. Xiao-Nong Zhou
Financing is a major element of universal health coverage, and we see other health system elements are equally critical, which include human resources, service delivery sites, medical supplies and equipment. We, hereby, put the theme of the inaugural issue of Infectious Diseases of Poverty as "Health Systems Research for Infectious Diseases of Poverty", in cope with the 2nd Global Symposium on Health System Research held in Beijing during 31 October to 3 November. Health policy is currently being framed in terms of achieving universal health coverage. The main purpose of the collection is to review the recent progress on the roles of the health systems in combating the infectious diseases of poverty so that call for more researches on health systems. Twelve articles were selected in the purpose of discussing treatment strategies, disease surveillance and interventions, and innovative programmes which provide a link between policy level and academic research.
We will continue to publish more thematic issues covering topics as social development, pricing and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals related to infectious diseases of poverty, etc.