Health Sector

   In 1972, China's legal status at the World Health Organization (WHO) was restored. By the end of 1995, 64 of China's health research institutions had been designated as WHO cooperative centers. By implementing comprehensive birth control measures with the contraception as the mainstay, China was conferred the population prize for family planning technical management and aristogenesis and good childcare.
   By the end of 1998, China had 314,000 health institutions, 2.914 million hospital beds and 5.536 million doctors and nurses. On average there were 2.33 hospital beds and 1.6 doctors for every 1,000 people. China's urban medical and disease prevention institutions have reached a certain scale. The difficulty in seeing a doctor and getting hospitalized has been eased considerably.
   China has 118 medical universities and colleges with more than 60,000 graduates a year; and 538 secondary medical schools with over 120,000 graduates annually. It has also trained a number of leaders in various subjects and cross-century professionals.
   The health standard of the Chinese people has been improved substantially. The national mortality rate has dropped from 30 per thousand in the early 1950s to 6.5 percent; the infant mortality rate, from 200 per thousand to 33.1 per thousand; and the mortality rate of pregnant women and women in labor, from 1,500 per ten thousand to 63.6 per ten thousand.
   Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the life expectancy of the Chinese people averaged 35 only. By the end of 1996, the figure surged to 70.80. Life expectancy of women averaged 73.04, and that of men, 68.71. The average life expectancy of Chinese residents was eight years lower than that of the residents of developed countries, but 10 years higher than that of the residents of other developing countries.
   China's urban and rural primary health care network has persisted in prophylactic health work. China had basically eliminated snail fever by the end of the 1950s; filarial infection by 1994; and poliomyelitis by 1995. It plans to fundamentally wipe out leprosy in 1997, and iodine deficiency in 2000.
   In 1989, China officially promulgated and implemented the "Law on Preventing and Controlling Infectious Diseases". By the end of 1997, it had formulated and promulgated a series of laws and regulations. Included are the "Regulations for Implementing the Law on Preventing and Controlling Infectious Diseases", the "Regulations Concerning Controlling Blood Products", the "Rules on Preventing and Controlling Venereal Diseases", the "Regulations on Preventing and Controlling Tuberculosis" and the "Rules on Disinfection Management." Various localities have formulated local regulations and rules in line with local conditions. In addition, the Ministry of Health and the State Bureau of Technological Supervision have jointly released 33 national health standards for infectious diseases and disinfection. China has set up a national information center for epidemic diseases, which connects 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities via computer. It has set up 1,457 disease monitoring stations. To prevent and control infectious diseases via blood, China has introduced the system under which blood donors shall have physical checks-up before donating their blood, be registered with one card per person, and go to a designated blood-collecting station on the strength of their cards.
   China is a country suffering from acute iodine efficiency. Iodine deficiency threatens almost all people except 30 million people in eight high iodine provinces including Jiangsu, Hebei and Shandong. The Chinese Government has attached great importance to the prevention and control of iodine deficiency. In 1993, the State Council opened a mobilization meeting to eliminate iodine deficiency in 2000, and set up a coordination leading group under it to eliminate iodine deficiency. The group consists of representatives from 24 ministries and commissions. China takes adding iodine to sale as the most economical and effective method. It has issued three related regulations including the "Regulation on Adding Iodine to Salt to Eliminate Iodine Deficiency." It began in 1995 to add iodine to salt supplied to all Chinese. In May of 1998, according to the second nationwide survey of the incidence of iodine deficiency conducted by the China Endemic Diseases Prevention and Control Research Center in 1997, China had made progress in this regard. The incidence of Children's thyroid enlargement reached 10.86 percent, nine percentage points lower than the first national survey result in 1995.
   To implement the principle of health education starting from children, the State Commission of Education issued a circular to educational departments across the country in 1993, requiring primary and middle schools, universities and other types of schools to sponsor health education courses. China began in 1994 to carry out the Health Education Campaign for 900 Million Farmers, which was launched by four ministries and commissions, and designed to spread health care knowledge in the countryside to help farmers to develop a healthy lifestyle. The "Program for People of the Whole Country to Keep Fit" was published and implemented across the country, with the State Council approval in June of 1995.
   China's sanitary supervision work has been incorporated into the track of the legal system gradually. In the early 1980s,China enacted one law and five regulations, namely, the "Law of Food Hygiene," the "Regulations on Public Health Management," the "Regulations on Preventing and Treating Juvenile Pneumology," the "Regulations Governing the Supervision of Cosmetics Hygiene," the 'Regulations on Radiation Prevention from Radioisotope and Radiation Equipment," and the "Regulations Concerning Sanitary Work in Schools." Moreover, the National People's Congress has promulgated the "Law on Management of Pharmaceuticals," the "Law of Health Quarantine in frontier," and the "Law on Preventing and Controlling Infectious Diseases." The State Council has also issued five administrative regulations and rules in the public health area.
   On December 9, 1996, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council held the first national public health work meeting, the first of its kind since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Jiang Zemin and Li Peng made important speeches at the meeting. Jiang Zemin pointed out that, to develop the socialist health undertaking with  Chinese characteristics, it is imperative to doing a good job in the following five areas: 1. Focusing on improving rural health work; 2. Carrying out the policy of putting prevention first; 3. Laying equal emphasis on traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine and developing the former; 4. Relying on scientific progress to improve professional technical standards;  5. Carrying out the patriotic health campaign and mobilizing the whole society to participate in the campaign. After the meeting, the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on the Reform and Development of Health Sector" spelled out tasks and set objectives for reforms and development. The objective of the health work set by the decision is to adhere to the Party's basic line and principles ad continue to deepen the reform of the health sector under the guidance of Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. By the end of 2000, China will have initially instituted a health system including health service, medical security and law enforcement and supervision to enable every resident to enjoy primary health care and improve the standard of people's health. By 2010, China will form an improved health system to meet the needs of the socialist market economic system and people's health. By 2010, China will have introduced a health system suited to a socialist market economic structure and meeting people's health needs. In developed areas, major indexes for people's health should meet and approach the average standard of the moderately developed countries. In underdeveloped areas, such indexes should meet the advanced standard of developing countries. By the end of 2oth century, efforts will be made to make sure that total gross social health cost will account for about five percent of China's gross domestic product. The principle put forward by the decision on the health work in the new period is to focus on rural areas, carry out the policy of putting prevention first, pay equal attention to traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, rely on science and education, to mobilize the whole society to participate in serving people's health and the socialist modernization drive. The decision also sets forth the basic principle for the reform and development of the health sector, that is, sticking to the purpose of serving the people; correctly handling the relations between social effects and economic returns; putting social effects above anything else; centering on improving people's health standard and giving priority to developing and ensuring the basic health service; proceeding from national conditions, rationally distributing resources and placing emphasis on improving quality and efficiency; in setting up medical institutions taking those owned by the state and collectives as the mainstay and taking as the supplement those run by other social sectors and individuals; opening wider to the outside world and increasing exchanges and enhancing cooperation in the international health area; and persisting in  promoting socialist material progress and ethical progress.
   In April of 1998, China's medical and health institutions decided to use newly-designed, unified symbol to replace the former Red Cross symbol. The unified symbol has a white cross surrounded by four red heart-shaped designs each with a white sideline. The four hearts represent the compassion, patience, care and responsibility of medical workers for patients. When in medical institutions, the design indicates centering on patients. When in other types of health institutions, the design suggests centering on protecting and promoting people's health.
   Since 1990, great changes have taken place in the traditional Chinese medicine industry, with the workshop-type production mode replaced by mass production. As a result, it has gradually realized the integration of farming, industry and commerce and the joint operation in production, supply and marketing.
   According to the 1998 statistics report, China had 12,807 kinds of traditional Chinese herbal medicines including 11,146 types of medical herbs, 1,581 species of animals for medical use, 80 types of minerals for medical use. A survey on 32 types of commonly-used medicinal herbs shows that they have a total reserve estimated at 8.5 million tons.
   During the five-year period from 1993 to 1998, the output value of the prepared traditional Chinese medicine industry increased by 20 percent on average annually. The profits and taxes generated by the industry grew at an average annual rate of 24 percent. The export of traditional Chinese medicines totaled 598 million US dollars, with traditional Chinese medicinal herbs accounting for 463 million US dollars and prepared traditional Chinese medicines, 135 million US dollars. Meanwhile, China had more than 10,000 commercial agencies dealing in traditional Chinese medicines and 36,000 retail outlets.