With the public health system still recovering from the strain
of the SARS epidemic, the central government is facing a new
challenge with rapidly spreading schistosomiasis.
According to Ministry of Health statistics for 2002 more than
810,000 Chinese were afflicted with the disease, but the current
number might be over 1 million, said Zhou Xiaonong, deputy director
of the Shanghai-based National Institute for Parasitic Disease
Control and Prevention.
Carried by freshwater snails, acute schistosomiasis is a
parasitic disease that attacks the blood and liver in humans. Over
time it can be fatal. Chronic patients, who account for most of
those contracting the disease, can experience high fever, weakness
of the limbs and severe stiffness of the joints.
Following the flood disaster along the Yangtze River in 1998,
the disease began to spread quickly in some regions along the
river, Zhou told China Daily in a telephone interview
yesterday.
The regions where the disease is not being effectively
controlled are located along the Yangtze and include central
China's Hubei
and Hunan,
and east China's Jiangsu
and Jiangxi
provinces.
The other two regions are southwest China's Yunnan
and Sichuan
provinces where the disease exists in mountainous areas, Zhou
added.
In these provinces, there are 3.52 billion square meters of
snail grounds with a population of about 65 million people.
Meanwhile, the number of acute schistosomiasis patients has been
rapidly increasing this summer and if effective measures are not
taken immediately an epidemic could break out in parts of the
Yangtze River valley, said Wang Liying, an official with the
Diseases Control Department of the Ministry of Health.
A 1992 schistosomiasis control project supported by a loan from
the World Bank was basically finished in 1998, said Wang.
About 1.6 billion yuan (US$193 million) from the World Bank loan
and governmental investment was used to finance the project, but
upon completion investment was sharply reduced in some areas, Wang
noted.
Presently, the annual investment of governments at various
levels is less than 70 million yuan (US$8.4 million). In addition
to investing more money, the central government should establish a
special office under the State Council to comprehensively guide and
strengthen the control work with pooling efforts from various
departments to fight the disease.
"It is far from enough to only depend on the health departments
to fight against the epidemic, which needs joint efforts from
different departments such as agriculture and water conservancy,"
he added.
According to the instruction of Vice Premier Wu Yi at a national
health work conference last month, the Ministry of Health is
currently drafting a program for battling the disease.
(China Daily August 20, 2003)