Indian public-private partnership for skilled birth-attendance.

www.thelancet.com Vol 371 February 23, 2008 631 cities that provide short courses for public-health workers with supervision provided by Chinese trainees and graduates of the training programme in fi eld epidemiology. These provincial programmes had trained over 200 public-health workers by the start of 2008. There is new funding for categorical programmes to combat priority diseases, including the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Fund to Fight Tuberculosis, AIDS and Malaria, and the GAVI Alliance. His torically, creating a legacy of health systems that sustain their goals has been diffi cult for categorical programmes. These programmes might now increase contributions to public health and strengthen human capacity by supporting initiatives such as training programmes in fi eld epidemiology. Thus, the training programmes can meet and sustain their goals with an added positive eff ect on countries’ abilities to improve health in many areas. The resulting public-health systems, led by competently trained public-health workers, will increase the host country’s ability to fi ght AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria— as well as diarrhoeal diseases, maternal mortality, and chronic diseases, and to address the International Health Regulations and other disease priorities of the ministries of health.