Public Health

New research shows that residents of large cities in China live 12 years longer than rural residents, and that the infant mortality rate is nine times higher in rural areas than in large cities, according to a November 17 Beijing News report posted on the Xinhua Web site. Dr. Zhao Zhongwei, a professor at the Australian National University, presented the results of a study entitled “Establishing a Harmonious Social Environment: Reducing China’s Mortality Rate, Successes and Challenges,” at a November 16 forum in Beijing. The study showed that from 1977 to 2002, the number of doctors in rural China decreased from 1.8 million to 800,000, and the number of rural health care workers decreased from 3.4 million to 800,000. The study also found that 80 percent of the rural population lacks health insurance.

Public security officers detained human rights activist Hu Jia when he attempted to deliver a petition to Vice Premier Wu Yi at an AIDS conference in Henan province, according to a November 7 report by Radio Free Asia. Public security officials have also detained 30 other petitioners at the conference, according to a November 8 South China Morning Post report (subscription required). Authorities closed the conference to the public and prevented civil society groups from participating.

Chinese authorities discovered poultry stocks that were infected with the avian flu virus in Inner Mongolia, Anhui, and Hebei in late October, according to reports posted on Xinhua's Web site on October 20, 25, and 27. In each instance, the Ministry of Agriculture responded by culling and vaccinating tens of thousands of birds. Avian flu has also broken out in 2005 in Qinghai, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Chinese authorities have not reported any human cases of avian flu.

The Ministries of Health and Agriculture announced on October 13 the establishment of a working group to prevent the transmission of diseases from animals to humans. The purpose of the working group is to strengthen coordination between the two ministries to prevent the outbreak of diseases such as avian flu and swine flu within the human population. According to the Ministry of Health, if an outbreak were to occur, the working group would assemble a team of experts, hold regular meetings to monitor the situation, report on the outbreak, and create a lab for researching the epidemiology of the outbreak.

The Ministry of Health announced a plan September 28 to control the emergence of a flu pandemic, according to an item posted on the Ministry's Web site. Under the "Flu Emergency Preparedness Plan," Health Ministry officials recommend the establishment of an anti-influenza leading working group, surveillance networks, laboratories, and a flu and bird-flu database to address the potential for human-to-human transmission of a mutated bird-flu virus. The plan also warns that the central government needs to improve China's vaccine production capabilities, since producing the appropriate vaccine can take two to six months after a pandemic begins.

Officials in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region who have financial interests in coal industries and mines have not divested themselves of these holdings, despite a State Council directive to do so, according to an October 14 Xinjiang Daily report. The State Council had issued a Circular on August 24 ordering all government and Party officials and state-owned enterprise managers throughout China to disclose and divest all of their financial holdings in coal industries and mines (other than shares purchased in the public stock exchange) by September 22.

Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia said that China's state security officers beat him and placed him under house arrest for 14 days during visits by top United Nations and European Union officials, according to an interview he gave Agence France-Presse's Hong Kong Service on September 7. According to Hu, officials held him under house arrest from August 24 through September 6. He said four state security officials beat him on August 29 when he tried to leave his home to go to the hospital. Hu arrived in Beijing on August 24 with a group of AIDS patients from Henan province, according to an August 31 report by Radio Free Asia.

The parents of a 24-year-old addict who died in a Guangdong province drug detoxification center received an anonymous call indicating that their son had been beaten to death, according to South China Morning Post articles published on August 4 and 5. An autopsy reportedly supports the caller’s assertion. The addict's parents, both doctors, had admitted him to the facility. According to one man who was detained there, the Guangdong center had a reputation for irregular fatalities and had been ordered to improve its record. Key footage from a surveillance camera that had been installed to prevent abuses is apparently missing without explanation.