People's Republic of China

Public health

Main articles: Public health in mainland China and Environment of China

Related Topics:
Public health in mainland China - Environment of China

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The PRC has several emerging public health problems: health problems related to air and water pollution, a progressing HIV-AIDS epidemic and hundreds of millions of cigarette smokers. The HIV epidemic, in addition to the usual routes of infection, was exacerbated in the past by unsanitary practices used in the collection of blood in rural areas. The problem with tobacco is complicated by the concentration of most cigarette sales in a government controlled monopoly. The government, dependent on tobacco revenue, seems hesitant in its response to the tobacco compared with other public health problems.

Related Topics:
Public health - Pollution - HIV-AIDS - Cigarette smokers - Tobacco

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Hepatitis B is endemic in mainland China, with a large percentage of the population contracting the disease; about 10% of these are seriously affected. Often this causes liver failure or liver cancer, a common form of death in China. Hepatitis has also been recently found to have resulted in fewer females being born (explaining part of China's gender imbalance. See Hepatitus B and the Case of the Missing Women). A program initiated in 2002 will attempt over the next 5 years to vaccinate all newborns in mainland China.

Related Topics:
Hepatitis B - Liver - Vaccinate

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On November 2002, the pneumonia-like SARS surfaced in Guangdong province. However, during the early stages of the epidemic, China suppressed news of the outbreak both internally and abroad, resulting to the spread of the epidemic into neighboring Hong Kong, Vietnam, and other countries via international travelers. Within China, 5327 reported cases and 348 deaths were confirmed, making it the hardest SARS-hit country to date. Cases of SARS failed to emerge through late 2004 and early 2005, however http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/health/15sars.html, and on 19 May, 2004, World Health Organization announced the PRC is free of further cases of SARS.

Related Topics:
SARS - Guangdong - Hong Kong - Vietnam - 19 May - 2004 - World Health Organization

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Another problem China faces is the strains of avian flu outbreaks in recent years among local poultry and birds, along with a number of its citizens. While the virus is currently mainly animal-human transmissible (with only two well documented cases of human-human have been to the present known of to scientists), experts expect an avian flu pandemic that would affect the region, should the virus morph to be human-human transmissible.

Related Topics:
Avian flu - Pandemic

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Yet another problem China faces is the recent pig-human transmission of Streptococcus suis bacteria, which has led to an unsually high number of deaths in and around Sichuan province.

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