Public Health

In 2005, China's health undertakings made great progress in terms of the scale and standard. By the end of 2005, there were 300,000 health institutions, including 60,000 general hospitals and health centers, 2,964 maternity and child care institutions and 1,470 specialized health institutions. General hospitals and health centers had 3.07 million beds. There were 4,456,000 health workers in China, including 1,938,000 practicing doctors and assistant practicing doctors and 1,340,000 registered nurses. The country also had 3,592 epidemic disease prevention centers (stations) with a staff of 161,000 people, and 1,925 health monitoring institutions with a staff of 38,000 people. There were 40,000 rural health care centers, offering 653,000 beds and employing 848,000 medical workers. A total of 671 counties/cities conducted experiments with a new rural cooperative medical care system, covering 177 million farmers. H5N1 avian flu cases were reported in 13 provinces and autonomous regions, with seven people infected and five dead.

HIV/AIDS

In January 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Public Health, the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization jointly issued the 2005 Report on China's Aids Condition and Prevention and Control Work. The report shows that till the end of 2005, the country had approximately 650,000, or between 540,000 and 760,000, HIV virus carriers, among which people living with AIDS totaled 75,000; the average infection rate was 0.05 percent. In 2005 alone, around 70,000 people were infected with HIV virus and about 25,000 died of AIDS.

The HIV infection rate among drug users rose from 1.95 percent in 1996 to 6.48 percent in 2004; for prostitutes, from 0.02 percent to 0.93 percent, and for pregnant women in high prevalence regions, from zero in 1997 to 0.26 percent in 2004. These numbers show that China's AIDS situation is deteriorating with infections and fatalities growing. The epidemic has spread from high-vulnerability groups to regular ones. New infections mainly come from drug use and unprotected sexual contact and the scourge is in danger of spreading further.

On March 1, 2006, the Regulations on AIDS Prevention and Control promulgated by the State Council took effect. It stipulates the responsibilities of governments at all levels in the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and clarifies the rights and responsibilities of HIV virus carriers. The Ministry of Public Health also issued the Action Plan of AIDS Prevention and Control (2006-10), nailing down the goal of AIDS prevention and control work as containing the number of HIV carriers in the country to under 1.5 million by 2010.

Bird Flu Control

Bird flu outbreaks were reported in many parts of China in 2005. From the time the first human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was confirmed on November 16, 2005, seven people were infected by the killing virus and five were killed by the end of the year. Guided by the principle of “timeliness, openness and transparency,” China reported the avian and human influenza cases to relevant international organizations and to other countries and regions.

As one of the first countries to see bird flu outbreaks, China attaches high importance to epidemic prevention and control and adopts a series of effective measures for this purpose. On November 16, 2005, the State Council passed the Animal Epidemic Emergency Regulations. In addition, the government drafted six follow-up documents, including the Technical Specifications on Handling HPAI Emergencies, to implement standardized operations in bird flu prevention and control. China also set up state-level surveillance offices in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities around the country, and 450 epidemic monitoring and reporting stations. In 2005, 2.92 million samples were tested for the H5N1 bird flu virus. Ninety percent of the villages in China had epidemic observers and reporters, numbering 645,000, to guarantee the early discovery, early reporting and early control of an epidemic. With support from the China Center for Disease Control, the country has set up investigation and rapid response medical groups for bird flu human infections and has also intensified scientific studies to speed up the diagnoses of bird flu and of vaccine development.

China supports and promotes global and regional cooperation in bird flu prevention and control. In December 2005, the Ministerial Conference for Asian Cooperation on HPAI Control was convened in Kunming, Yunnan Province, where representatives from 16 countries and six international organizations endorsed the Kunming Initiative for Asian Cooperation on HPAI Control and put forward many valuable suggestions. The country also invited experts from international organizations to inspect bird flu prevention and control in some affected areas and to come up with an appropriate vaccine. It also provided the World Health Organization labs with H5N1 samples and publicized the virus's gene sequence collected after 2004.

In order to further global cooperation in bird flu prevention and control, the Chinese Government, the European Commission and the World Bank jointly held the International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza in January 2006, attended by some 700 representatives from more than 100 countries including the United States and Japan and more than 20 international organizations. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao put forward a four-point proposal at the ministerial meeting of the conference--to cooperate globally in prevention and control, to strengthen capabilities in prevention and control, to enhance the role of the United Nations and other relevant international organizations and to bolster funding. Premier Wen also announced China's pledge of US$10 million for the global fight against bird flu and its continued support to other needy countries.