Public Health

A student in Henan province has filed a law suit against the Henan Institute of Finance and Economics alleging that the school discriminated against him because he is a carrier of the hepatitis B virus, according to China Youth Daily. The university denied the student admission last spring, despite the fact that the student scored above the cut-off point on the entrance examination. According to the university, officials denied the student admission because his application showed that he had tested positive for hepatitis B.

The National People’s Congress amended the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases on August 28, 2004. The amended law specifically prohibits discrimination against people infected with contagious diseases, people carrying the pathogen of a contagious disease, and people who are suspected of having a contagious disease.

Henan provincial authorities will include several urban medical facilities in a rural health cooperative system that provides health services to migrants and rural residents, according to a Beijing News report. Chinese migrants and rural residents are often excluded from receiving urban public services, including health care, on the same terms as urban residents. The Henan decision appears to be a positive step aimed at removing some of these barriers.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) issued a circular on August 8 announcing the results of an investigation that identified "gaps and omissions" in the online reporting of disease-related deaths, calling the lapses a "grave phenomenon." Investigators surveyed 130 medical facilities at the county-level and above in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. They found that 20 percent of the hospitals surveyed had failed to develop an online network for the reporting of disease-related deaths. The investigation also found that hospitals that had developed online reporting failed to report deaths more than 30 percent of the time. The MOH identified the lack of a unified nationwide reporting network as a major problem, and called for greater speed and accuracy among all medical facilities in the reporting of disease-related deaths.

On June 2, the Ministry of Health issued Administrative Measures on the Reporting of Infectious Disease Information. The measures require that all medical organizations strengthen their systems for infectious disease diagnosis and reporting, train medical personnel in infectious disease reporting, and assist in infectious disease investigations. The measures also mandate prompt reporting of outbreaks and suspected cases of anthrax, highly contagious pneumonia, polio, human cases of avian flu, and other infectious diseases of unknown causes. Such outbreaks must be reported to county-level infectious disease prevention and control organizations and disease reporting networks within two hours of being discovered.

Former political prisoner Wang Wanxing has spoken out about his experiences in the Beijing Public Security Bureau's Ankang Hospital for the Custody and Treatment of Mentally Ill Offenders (Beijing Ankang Hospital), according to a November 2 news release from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a November 3 article in the German weekly Die Zeit. Both reports note that on August 16, Wang became the most prominent political prisoner so far that Chinese authorities have released from psychiatric custody. The reports include new details about the Chinese government's system of custody and treatment hospitals for mentally ill criminal offenders, also known as the "ankang" system.

The Ministry of Health implemented its 2006 Rural Migrant Worker Work Plan according to a May 16 announcement on the Ministry of Health Web site. The plan’s goals include preventing and controlling the spread of AIDS among rural migrant workers and improving infectious disease monitoring capabilities in large urban areas with migrant workers. The plan also seeks to raise the immunization rate among the children of migrant workers and improve workplace health and safety conditions for migrants.

Chinese authorities released AIDS activist Hu Jia on March 28 after 41 days in detention, according to a March 29 Reuters article. Hu said the questioning he received while in detention made it clear that authorities detained him for helping organize a nationwide hunger strike by human rights defenders against government repression. Hu had been missing since February 16 and was under residential surveillance at the time he disappeared, according to a March 22 Toronto Globe and Mail article.

The Ministry of Health released Interim Provisions on Clinical Application and Management of Human Organ Transplantation (in Chinese) on March 27, 2006. The provisions become effective on July 1, 2006, and will introduce a set of medical standards for organ transplants in China. According to the provisions, medical institutes must have the written consent of the organ donor and must guarantee that organs used in transplants come from legal sources. In addition, the provisions ban the buying and selling of organs, and provide prospective donors with the right to refuse donation. The new rules, however, fail to provide guidance on organs harvested from executed prisoners.