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Media Report 85
Source: | Author:hkb980dd | Published time: 2013-08-30 | 359 Views | Share:
 
Source: Nigerian Tribune
 
Building on 50 years of partnership, dozens of African health ministers and Chinese health officials gathered at the Ministerial Forum on China-Africa Health Development to map out new efforts to support Africa’s long-term health progress and shape the future of China-Africa health cooperation.
 
At the first-ever meeting of health ministers under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), they launched the Beijing Declaration of the Ministerial Forum on China-Africa Health Development, which sets a roadmap for jointly addressing key health challenges across Africa, including malaria, schistosomiasis, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, immunization and vaccine preventable diseases. 
 
Under the declaration, China and African countries will embark on new efforts to achieve sustainable, long-term health solutions, such as increasing partnerships on joint research and addressing the shortage of healthcare workers.
 
China and African countries will engage further with private enterprise to encourage technology transfer and increase access to low-cost health technologies that meet high quality standards. The declaration emphasizes that such health cooperation efforts will align with African countries’ priorities as well as national and regional development plans.
Hon. Awa Coll-Seck, Minister of Health of Senegal in a release from the meeting stated: “China and African countries have enjoyed strong and effective partnerships on health for half a century, based on our common experiences and our shared vision for a brighter and healthier future for all our citizens.
 
 “The Beijing Declaration solidifies our governments’ commitments to developing and implementing Africa-led strategies that drive sustainable health progress and improve the lives of people across the continent.”
 
Reacting Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Margaret Chan said: “The decades of collaboration between China and Africa has long been characterised by friendship and goodwill. More…
 
29/08/2013
 
Source: The Atlantic
 
On August 25, 2013, authorities confirmed that well-known angel investor and social media celebrity Charles Xue had been detained on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute, after police raided his home based on a tip-off from a neighbor. While some speculated that the arrest was part of a crackdown on outspoken microbloggers—Xue is a well-known social commentator on Weibo—few spoke of the consequences for the woman surnamed Zhang who was arrested for prostitution in the same raid.
 
Sex workers in China face many challenges to making their voices heard. Because of widespread legal and societal discrimination and stigma, sex workers are also particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses. As the rate of prostitution in China has increased yearly since 1982, the problems and dangers sex workers face are becoming an increasingly pressing societal problem.
 
Thanks to China’s one-child policy and a preference for male babies, men exceed women in China by tens of millions. Owing to this inequality, numerous men aren’t able to find women to marry. This has not only led to an increase in the human trafficking of women, but also to an increase in the number of prostitutes and the number of men who seek them out for their services. In one survey, 1 in 5 sexually-active men admitted to having paid for sex with a prostitute.
 
Prostitution is illegal but it is all-but-openly practiced, especially since the early 1980s, as the government began to loosen controls over society in a series of legal and political reforms. Prostitution in China, as in other countries around the world, has continued despite legal warnings and government crackdowns. Not only has it become more visible, but it can now be found in both urban and rural areas. More…
 
29/08/2013
 
Source: Xinhua
 
Ninety percent of newly reported HIV/AIDS patients in China over the past ten years were infected through sexual contact, a disease prevention official said Thursday.
 
According to Wu Zunyou, director of the HIV/AIDS division of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 70 percent of all new cases reported as of June resulted from heterosexual practices, and 20 percent through homosexual contact.
 
Wu revealed the information during an online interview hosted by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
 
Wu noted that some 230,000 HIV/AIDS patients have received antiviral treatments since they were first introduced in the country in 2004.
 
Wu also cited various government policies as well as campaigns jointly conducted by government departments and LGBT groups, which have played key roles in promoting safe sex and HIV/AIDS treatments.
 
With an estimated 48,000 to 50,000 new HIV/AIDS infections every year, Wu said the government aims to reduce new infections by 25 percent and HIV/AIDS mortality by 30 percent by the end of 2015. More…
 
29/08/2013
 
Source: Global Times
 
Chinese lawmakers are calling for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to play a bigger role in preventing and controlling infectious diseases.
 
TCM has been proved effective in treating patients of SARS, bird flu and other infectious diseases hitting China over the past 10 years, said Chen Weiwen, a legislative deputy from Guangdong Province, at the on-going bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.
 
Statistics showed that when patients suffering the H7N9 virus were treated with a combination of Chinese and western methods, the death rate was 9.1 percent, much lower than the 30 percent when using only western treatments.
 
TCM can help shorten the duration of a disease and improve patients' abilities to tolerate pain. The low cost of TCM can also help relieve the burden of treatment fees that patients face, Chen said.
 
However, the advantages of TCM has not been given full play in treating infectious diseases due to weak promotion among the public and a lack of regulations in the legal system, he said.
 
No TCM clinics have been set up in hospitals across the country, let alone treating infectious diseases, Chen said.
 
Zhang Jiyu, another deputy, said the government should issue regulations that encourage the training of TCM staff so as to promote the industry's development.
 
In response to the concerns, Wang Guoqiang, director of the State Administration of TCM, said the government was closely studying how to adopt the TCM approach at the early stages of treating infectious disease emergencies.
 
TCM has played an important role in preventing epidemics after natural disasters, such as strong earthquakes in Sichuan Province and mud-rock flows in Gansu Province.
 
Based on experience, TCM experts should be included in medical teams in the prevention and control of epidemics, which usually consisted of western medicine members of staff, Wang said. More…
 
28/08/2013
 
Source: South China Morning Post
 
By: Jennifer Ngo
 
There were 123 new HIV infections reported in the second quarter of the year and 22 Aids cases - with the infection rate among homosexual men described as "worrying" by the consultant for the government's special preventive programme.
 
Sexual contact between men accounted for 58 of the 123 new infections of the immunodeficiency virus.
 
It also accounted for 10 of the new Aids patients, who have HIV plus an "Aids-defining illness" such as tuberculosis.
 
The statistics come from the HIV reporting system, which has been monitoring the Aids epidemic since Hong Kong diagnosed its first HIV infection in 1984.
 
Since then, 6,045 people have been diagnosed as HIV-positive and 1,387 have been diagnosed with Aids.
 
In 2003, the total number of new HIV infections reported for the whole year was 229.
 
"An increase of HIV infection among [the male homosexual community] is very apparent and it's worrying," said Dr Wong Ka-hing, consultant of the Health Department's preventive programme.
 
He added that the figures had been increasing since 2005, saying: "The whole world is dealing with this trend, and efforts to curb the epidemic have not been very successful." More…
 
23/08/2013
 
Source: China Daily
 
By: Li Aoxue
 
Chinese doctors working in Africa face tough conditions, but the rewards are priceless
 
Che Hao looked happy and excited about going back to work as a doctor in Guinea.
 
The 35-year-old Che left for his second stint in Guinea on Aug 19 and won't be back for a year.
 
In August 2012, Beijing Anzhen Hospital chose 19 doctors to provide medical assistance at a local hospital in Guinea, including Che. After working there for a year, they came back for a month-long vacation.
 
Che graduated from Capital Medical University in Beijing. He first worked at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, but later transferred to Anzhen Hospital, where he thought he could improve his anesthetic skills.
 
Last year he went to work at a local hospital in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. When he arrived the hospital could only manage three operations in four months. With his help, they did 210 in the year he was there.
 
"The reason why so few operations could be done was because they didn't have enough anesthetic expertise, and by going to work there I was able to help them perform more operations," Che says. "I was also able to pass on some techniques to the local specialists."
 
This year is the 50th anniversary of China starting to send medical teams abroad. Since the first team went to Algeria, China has sent 23,000 medical people to 66 countries. Currently, about 1,100 Chinese medical staff are working at 113 medical centers in 50 countries worldwide.
 
Overall, China has sent about 20,000 doctors to 51 African countries. Of those, 962 have received presidential medals for their contribution to healthcare in Africa. Currently Chinese medical staff are working in 43 African countries.
 
Che is younger than most of the 18 colleagues who also went with him to work in Guinea, but what he achieved impressed many of them, as well as the local patients. They all realized he had made many sacrifices to help African patients.
 
When Che first applied to work in Africa, he never imagined conditions there would be so tough. More…
 
21/08/2013
 
Source: China Daily
 
By: Shan Juan
 
You wouldn't know by looking at Feifei that she is HIV positive.
The tall, 15-year-old girl with a ponytail, originally from a mountain village in Yunnan province, now goes to middle school in a county three hours from home by bus.
 
"It's hard taking medicine twice a day because I have to hide it from others," she said, her hands pinching the strap of her bag.
 
Every day at 8:10 am, during the morning reading session, she swallows three antiretroviral therapy pills.
 
"I take the medicine behind the book without drinking water because I don't want my classmates to see," she said.
 
At first, her mother said it was just tuberculosis and told her the truth last year when she had a boyfriend.
 
"I learned that I got the virus from her and began to hate her," she recalled.
But the hatred didn't last long as she saw her mother working so hard selling fruit to support her education.
 
"I don't want to think or know much about the disease — it might make me feel desperate," she said.
 
"I'm a bit worried that my condition might affect a future relationship," she said.
 
Yin Zuyan, Feifei's doctor, said she feels at a loss, particularly when young patients like Feifei ask her about relationships. "Becoming a teenager and entering puberty, naturally they are longing for a relationship. It is extremely hard to give any advice," she said. More…
 
 
20/08/2013
 
Source: Global Times
 
An official report published on Friday stated that AIDS was Hunan's leading cause of death among infectious diseases in the past 20 years.
 
Hunan Provincial Department of Public Health Friday issued a report on the situation, saying that there are a total of 18,430 cases of AIDS or HIV in the province. They also said that there were 5,482 deaths between 1992 and the end of July this year, the seventh most in China.
 
 Hengyang , Yongzhou, Changsha, Huaihua and Shaoyang were ranked the top five cities in terms of the number of HIV patients.
 
The ratio of male patients to female ones in Hunan is 2.3 to 1 and 43.32 percent of the patients are farmers, according to the report.
 
A majority of the patients aged above 50 were infected through heterosexual activity whereas 70 percent of the student patients, those aged between 15 and 24, were infected through homosexual activity.
 
Though it takes five to ten years for HIV carriers to be infected with AIDS, 42 percent of patients failed to detect the disease by taking a test and died once they were diagnosed with AIDS, said Chen Xi, an authority in the center for disease control and prevention in Hunan on Saturday.