China may be one of the world’s largest markets for companies from Rolls-Royce to Rolex, but beneath that veneer of wealth lies poverty so extreme that millions of people have never been taught to wash their hands before meals or boil drinking water.
Now Novartis is seeking to take that knowledge to the nomads and peasants of remote western China – hoping that they will one day remember the foreign drug company that cared enough to teach them.
Nilupaer Tailati, 23, has the brown curly hair and distinctive features that mark her out as a member of the Uighur minority in China’s far western Xinjiang province, where Uighurs outnumber Hans, the ruling ethnic group in China.