Nearly 77,000 residents of a Tibetan-inhabited region in southwest China will be relocated in a battle against an incurable endemic bone disease that leaves them unable to work and stuck in a life of poverty, according to the local authority.

With an investment of 1.1 billion yuan (US$157 million) from the government, a total of 17,067 households in the Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, will be moved to new homes away from the region prone to Kaschin-Beck disease as of 2013, said He Wentao, an official of Aba's development and reform commission.

New houses are being built for the migrants and water pipes will be paved, a key measure to purify drinking water for farmers and herdsmen who once shared their water with livestock.

It is a new development of the comprehensive scheme aimed at helping 41,184 Kaschin-Beck patients in Aba, most of whom are of Tibetan ethnicity, to get rid of the curse of the endemic disease that bloats the joints, and leads to limb deformity or dwarfism.

Aba has reported the highest Kaschin-Beck incidents in China since the disease was diagnosed there in 1950s.

The endemic disease usually hits people in youth. Most patients will lose work ability when they grow up, and be trapped in a life of poverty.

The local authorities began to move students to schools outside their hometowns in 1996, the first step in the scheme.

So far, the initiative has benefited more than 26,400 students aged between 5 and 15 across the prefecture, according to He Yuan, deputy director of the educational bureau of Aba.

The first group of the pilot students, who are reaching their 20s, have basically got rid of Kaschin-Beck symptoms, said He.

In Nanmuda township, 912 students, 90 percent of whom suffer from the disease, are studying in a boarding school away from their homes in neighboring regions with a monthly meal subsidy of 110 yuan (15.7 US dollars) from the government.

"I'm never worried about our children. They are studying and living in a safe and healthy environment," said Qoimqung, father of two boys in the school.

The disease is mainly found in a long and narrow region extending from the country's northeast to the southwest, plaguing at least more than 810,000 people in 14 province-level regions including Tibet Autonomous Region, according to China Medical Tribune.

The cause of the disease remains unconfirmed. Some experts hold that ingestion of certain kind of fungus contained in highland barley, a staple food for local people, and low iodine and selenium intake may be contributing factors.

Under the program, each patient can get 15 kg of rice every month for free, a replacement for the suspected highland barley, and have medical costs refunded.

The government also pays a monthly subsidy of 100 yuan to more than 3,000 seriously ill patients, and pays the fees for some senior citizens to live in old people's houses.

The project also encourages scientific research to ascertain the cause and cure of the mysterious disease.

The aim is to cut the rate of new cases to 5 percent in ten years from the current 20 percent, said Pei Fuxing, a doctor in charge of clinic research and treatment of the disabling degenerative disease.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2008)