CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3 , No.18 - July 17, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- China's Pharmaceutical Industry Posts Steady Growth
- Shanghai to Extend Use of Bidding System for Hospital Drugs in H2
- Chinese Medical School Students to Teach Farmers about AIDS
- China Leads Race for First Human Clone
China's Pharmaceutical Industry Posts Steady Growth
China's pharmaceutical industry has continued its rapid growth in both production and sales, according to the State Economic and Trade Commission.
The gross output value of China's pharmaceutical industry totaled RMB 124.77 billion in the first five months of this year, up 20.77% over the same period last year. The industrial added value totaled RMB 36.73 billion, up 21.1%, while the output value of products sold amounted to RMB 93 billion, up 18.9%.
Nine provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shaanxi and Fujian reported an increase of 20% in sales revenue.
Industrial enterprises posted profits of RMB 7.43 billion, up 28.25%, with profitability on sales being 8.0%, 0.4% more than for the same period last year.
The production of chemical pharmaceutical increased in proportion to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Statistics show that 1,763 chemical pharmaceutical works generated an output value of RMB 80.16 billion in the first five months of this year, up 22.5%, in increase of 7.1% than for the same period last year. The added value came to RMB 20.44 billion, up 18.78%. The sales output value amounted to RMB 53.38 billion, up 17.86%.
Altogether 1,261 TCM works posted an output value of RMB 26.85 billion, up 13.8%, which represents a growth of 0.5% higher than that in the same period last year. The added value came to RMB 8.71 billion, up 12.1%. The sales output value amounted to RMB 24.25 billion, up 9.69%.
(Source: Xinhua)
Shanghai to Extend Use of Bidding System for Hospital Drugs in H2
Officials from the Shanghai Public Health Bureau (the bureau) have revealed that the City will expand the use of a bidding system for the supply of drugs to local hospitals during the second half of the year.
From July, the price of 318 varieties of medicine prescribed by local hospitals will be determined by bids submitted by drug manufacturers. The sales of drugs covered by the bidding system are expected to amount to RMB 3.1 billion for the second half of this year.
Shanghai began using the bidding system for certain drugs two years ago, and applied the system to 22 varieties of drugs last year. The drugs to be covered by the system from July include cold remedies, anti-cancer medicines, thrombus drugs, anti-diabetes medicines and blood-pressure drugs. "Drug quality is the first criterion in choosing winners. The second concern is price," bureau director Liu Jun said. "Our aim is to provide patients better medical services at a lower price."
The Bureau said the use of the bidding system has brought the prices of drugs covered by the system down by 21%. However, some pharmaceutical companies have expressed their concerns that the use of the bidding system could squeeze profits and thereby hinder investment in research and development.
(Source: AFX - Asia)
Chinese Medical School Students to Teach Farmers about AIDS
This summer, many Chinese farmers will have a chance to learn about something they may have never heard of before but could be spreading among them.
That something is "ai zi bing" in Chinese, or AIDS, a deadly infectious disease which has claimed millions of lives.
The farmers will be told that they can stay safe by taking some preventive measures taught by their teachers, a group of college students. The students from medical schools throughout China will go to rural areas in 10 provinces in west and central China during their summer vacation.
They students, come teachers, plan to give lectures, show videos and hand out pamphlets to rural residents. And the classroom may be anywhere: countryside fairs, transportation depots, or docks.
China's public health and education authorities now realize that college students can play a leading role in educating the public on the prevention of AIDS, which is silently spreading across the country. Experts estimate that the total number of HIV infection cases in China stands at 850,000, of which some 80,000 to 100,000 people have developed AIDS.
Xiao Donglou, an official with the Ministry of Health said the "dominant number of HIV carriers and AIDS patients live in rural areas. But their knowledge about AIDS prevention and relevant laws are insufficient." He said people with little HIV/AIDS knowledge merely connect the disease with death and stigma, thus causing strong fear and discrimination against HIV/AIDS infected people.
The Health Ministry's statistics show that sharing needles among drug users caused 68% of the confirmed HIV cases, while illegal plasma buying through unclean methods in the mid-1990s was responsible for 9.7% of HIV infections.
A five-year national plan on prevention and control of HIV/AIDS hopes to raise the proportion of urban residents informed about AIDS prevention to 75% by the year 2005. In rural areas, the proportion should be 45% by the year 2005, according to the plan.
(Source: BBC Worldwide Monitoring)
China Leads Race for First Human Clone
According to one of China's top research scientists, who reports producing more than 30 cloned human embryos, China is leading the race towards human cloning.
The scientist, Professor Lu Guangxiu, says she wants to pave the way for cloned "spare parts" that would extend the lives of millions.
Professor Lu, 62, is professor of reproductive medicine at Xiangya School of Medicine at Changsha in Hunan province, where she leads the cloning team. Her team has used a refinement of the cloning technique that led to the birth of Dolly the sheep five years ago. Professor Lu's success has been attributed, by her western rivals, to her access to an almost unlimited supply of human eggs, and China's less stringent legal controls.
Professor Lu research, which is due to be published shortly by a leading western scientific journal, brings the prospect of scientists producing an entire cloned baby even closer - a goal that is officially opposed throughout the world but is privately regarded by most embryo researchers as irresistible.
Other teams of scientists have also claimed to have cloned human embryos but only one - Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) - has published its details. However, none of ACT's clones have survived as long as the Chinese embryos.
Each year 20,000 hopeful Chinese mothers attend Professor Lu 's clinic for fertility treatment. Professor Lu's researchers then harvest the unwanted eggs for experimentation. "She has a production line," said a leading cloning expert in America.
Professor Lu also receives financial backing from the Chinese government through its commercial investment arm, China International Trust and Investment Corporation (Citic). Citic has bought a majority stake in her clinic and is helping Professor Lu patent her work internationally to protect its enormous financial potential.
One of the few people to know the details of Lu's work is Xiangzhong Yang, a Chinese-born professor of biotechnology at Connecticut University. He predicted she would be able to produce human tissue for transplant operations within five years.
Professor Lu's researchers are now attempting to create cell cultures from embryos that could be grown into specialized human tissues, such as livers, hearts or even a brain, which could then be used for repairing damaged organs.
Professor Lu's progress has also been aided by different cultural attitudes: the Chinese believe life begins only at birth. Because childlessness carries a heavy stigma, many couples turn to IVF, yet a strict one-child policy means many unused eggs are produced that are readily donated for research. Mr. Alan Handyside, professor of developmental biology at Leeds University, was among British specialists who recently attended a scientific meeting in China. He said the nation's vast supply of human eggs was a key to its success. "Nobody here (in Britain) can get hold of anything like their numbers," he said. "There are a lot of people involved in the work and they are making a great deal of progress."
ACT said cloning work in the West was held back by stricter controls and the nervousness of investors. "I had heard about this work in China," said Robert Lanza, its medical director. "They are bound to be ahead of us because they have access to eggs. Nobody wants to invest in the work here because it might be outlawed at any time. "It is a real tragedy. I have calculated that two people die of heart disease, Parkinson's or diabetes - all curable with stem cells - every minute that we delay research on this."
Professor Lu's cloning techniques differ from some others because she leaves the egg's own nucleus inside the cell when the new "adult" cell nucleus is inserted to create the clone. Using this method, Professor Lu claims to be able to minimize damage to the egg's delicate structure. The original nucleus is then removed hours later.
The technique has purportedly allowed Professor Lu to grow cloned embryos for periods of up to 10 days, when they become masses containing several hundred cells but before they start to show the characteristics that would eventually form a baby. ACT has managed to grow an embryo to only six cells.
(Source: Sunday Times (London))
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