C hina CDC Weekly’s inaugural issue was published less than 2 months before the first reports of COVID-19 emerged in China. Since then, the Weekly has continued to evolve alongside the needs of the global health community to access and to share updated data and novel findings. The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the ability of public health agencies to respond and protect their people while pharmaceutical solutions can be developed, and the open sharing of comprehensive, up-to-date data and state-of-the-art technologies has been the cornerstone of formulating and refining local, regional, and national responses in an increasingly connected and interdependent global system.
National public health bulletins are key to maintaining channels to promptly disseminate research and public health practice data and findings. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a defining example of the importance of a national public health bulletin, has closely tracked the evolution of the outbreaks and epidemics of AIDS,1 H1N1 swine influenza A (later renamed 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1),2 Ebola virus,3 and others. And, beyond infectious disease outbreaks and public health emergencies, many data on public health and disease control issues were disseminated and shared both nationally and internationally in an academic way; thereafter, the novel strategy and technologies were put into practice. By examining the MMWR ’s publication history, we can see how these public health crises evolved from initial reports of localized incidents to global sharing of research data.
The rapid development of China’s public health infrastructure, socioeconomic conditions, and ability to participate in global affairs has necessitated an MMWR-equivalent public health bulletin, which was ultimately achieved with the China CDC Weekly. Increased communication and cooperation in global health depends on providing trusted resources for building more comprehensive understanding of existing circumstances and refining action plans based on the experiences of other researchers and experts. The Weekly aims to join the MMWR, Eurosurveillance, and the Journal of Public Health in Africa in providing another cache of high-quality research to be utilized and referenced.
In the year since its inaugural issue, the Weekly has published more than 160 novel research studies and reports, has had readers from every country and territory, and has accumulated millions of page views. The Weekly has also encouraged global experts to share their perspectives on important public health challenges and has published insights by former US CDC Director Tom Frieden4 and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Director Andrea Ammon,5 among others. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic especially, the Weekly has prioritized sharing breakthrough findings and data, such as the genomic sequencing results of the viruses from the first cases in Wuhan, China;6 the first large-scale epidemiological analysis of more than 70 000 cases in China;7 and the recent confirmation of material-to-human mode of transmission of the virus. In addition, the Weekly maintains a monthly update of the National Notifiable Disease Reporting System that provides the updated number of cases and deaths attributable to more than 40 infectious diseases.
Looking forward, the Weekly aims to take on additional responsibility by promoting mutual information exchanges and, similarly to the MMWR, publishing more global health data that are broader in scope. This goal is meant to foster bilateral and multilateral cooperative relationships that improve data sharing to the global community—partnerships like the cooperative effort between China’s public health experts and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. China’s public health community has closely followed the circumstances and development of Africa’s public health, and we at the Weekly hope to maintain and develop communications with the Journal of Public Health in Africa and other regional scientific journals. In this manner, the Weekly hopes to continue promoting the development of public health communication and data sharing and to provide new tools to the global community to achieve progress toward the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We acknowledge the editorial staff of China CDC Weekly.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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