For one of these respondents, the issue was primarily one of uneven economic development across urban and rural centres. But it is worth noting that Chinese respondents also saw the benefits of collaboration around infectious disease control as flowing in both directions - not just into China, but outwards to the rest of the world. Thus two respondents pointed out that infectious disease control is not merely a national concern but has international and global implications, and that consequently, as one respondent put it, “an integrated global approach is necessary to understand transmission and evolution of infectious disease agents”. International co-operation and exchange would thus benefit not just China, but would contribute to the work of infectious disease control in an international context. In the case of South Africa, this pattern was reversed. South African responses to the sections of the questionnaire that asked about stratified medicine were very brief compared to those relating to control of infectious diseases.