Two internationally funded health projects to fight heart disease and diabetes - serious diseases which have begun to threaten more and more Chinese - got under way yesterday.
A three-year medical education project, named National Healthy Heart Programme, was launched yesterday in Beijing by Project Hope, a world-famous medical education unit from the United States.
More than 2,000 heart-disease specialists from Chinese hospitals and medical colleges will attend training classes in the coming three years.
Coronary heart disease, which affects 58 per cent of all the heart disease patients in urban Chinese hospitals, has been marked as the main target of the training project, Shell Xue, national programme director in the Project Hope Beijing Representative Office, said at the opening ceremony for the programme.
The other internationally funded project involves the Ministry of Health and Novo Nordisk, a leading diabetes care company from Denmark.
The two signed an agreement on the Joint China National Diabetes Management Project in Beijing yesterday.
The five-year project, with an investment of 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) from the company, is designed to establish guidelines for diabetes care, educate doctors and nurses and promote public awareness.
(China Daily December 19, 2002)
