China Medical News

China's one child policy was introduced in the late 1970s to control the surging population by limiting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children, if the first born child was a girl. The policy was later relaxed to allow parents to have a second child if they were both the only children. It was further relaxed in 2013, after the Third Plenary Session of the 18^th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, allowing couples to have a second child if one of them was an only child.
The implementation of the one-child policy has resulted in an estimated reduction of approximately 400 million people in China, which successfully contained the problem of over-population. However, it has also been blamed for generating a number of social problems, especially the decrease in labor force and the aging population.
On October 29^th, after the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18^th CPC Central Committee, the CPC announced that China will be abandoning its decades-long one child policy, and that all couples can now have two children. This change of policy is intended to balance the population and address the challenge of an aging population.
After this announcement, Li Bin, the head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said that the two-child policy will optimize the demographic structure, increase labor supply, ease pressure from the ageing population, and help improve the health of the economy. Li added that the Commission will increase services in maternal and child health as well as build more kindergartens. (Source: Xinhua)

On September 16^th, NHFPC (National Health and Family Planning Commission of PRC), NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) and 14 other departments jointly issued China’s cancer prevention and treatment three-year action plan (2015-2017).

Over the past 20 years, the incidence of cancer in China has increased year by year, and according to the national cancer registration results of 2013, the incidence of cancer in China was 235/100,000 with mortality of 144/100,000.

This plan has some specific goals including; increase the 5-year survival rate of major cancers, increase the public knowledge relating to cancer to 60%, increase early diagnosis rate to 50%, reduce the adult smoking rate by 3%, further standardize and increase the tumor registration to 30% of the population, and to formulate a national cancer map. (Source: NHFPC)

According to a paper published by the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, one in five Chinese are in "poor cardiovascular shape", and one person dies from heart disease every ten seconds in China. Statistics showed that the number of Chinese aged between 35 and 44 with coronary heart diseases has increased 30% over the last three years, and the death rate of the same age group has risen 111% over the past 15 years. (Source: Xinhua)

Beijing's first private mental health clinic opened on August 2nd. The clinic is located in downtown Beijing, and is the first private mental health medical institution approved by the health authorities. The clinic is also China's first mental health clinic to combine online and in-person services. Fifteen mental health experts from major Beijing hospitals will offer medical services at the clinic as part of a move to encourage doctors to serve patients in multiple hospitals and clinics. China had 4.3 million severely mentally ill patients on official record at the end of 2014. To address a lack of mental health professionals, the 2015-2020 plan for mental health work encourages health institutes to set up psychology clinics and strengthen staff training, raising the projected number of doctors specializing in mental disorders to 40,000 by 2020. (Source: Xinhua)

On July 28^th, which is this year's World Hepatitis Day, a health official from the National Health and Family Planning Commission said that, according to data collected by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are approximately 90 million people infected with the hepatitis B virus. However, the reported incidence of the disease has been decreasing in recent years. According to the 2014 statistics, the prevalence of hepatitis B infection in Chinese children aged 1~4 and 5~14, have both decreased by more than 60% from 2006, to 0.32% and 0.94% respectively.
The health official noted that the China's vaccination-based strategy to control the virus has helped significantly, and it has helped the country reach the goals set by the WHO to reduce HBV prevalence in children to less than 1% by 2017. The case load of hepatitis A in China also hit a record low in 2014.
However, the morbidity of hepatitis E has risen in the recent years, and the health official mentioned that China still has a long way to go in its battle against the disease. (Source: Xinhua)

China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) announced on July 20th that there were 41,018 cases of medical device adverse events reported in 2014, which is 18.6% higher than the previous year. Of these medical device adverse events, 98 cases were fatal, and the rest left serious injuries on the patients. Of all medical device adverse events, 72% were performed by professional medical staffs. Most commonly reported medical device adverse event was related to medical polymer materials, followed by injection and puncture apparatus, and medical sanitary materials. (Source: Xinhua)

According to the "2015 report on Chinese nutrition and chronic disease" which was released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the prevalence of hypertension among Chinese adults was 25.5%, and diabetes was 9.7%. These numbers were higher compared to the results of 2002 when the first issue of this report was published.

This report also mentioned that the incidence rate of cancer was 235 out of 100,000 people in 2013 with lung cancer being the most frequently occurring cancer in men, and breast cancer among women. The incidence rate of cancer was also at an all-time high.

According to the report, in 2012, 533 out of every 100,000 Chinese residents died from chronic disease, accounting for 86.6% of all deaths, with cardio vascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases as being the top causes.

The report mentioned that "Body movement for the average Chinese is at a low level" with only 18.7% of the population between 20 and 69 years old regularly exercise (at least three times a week, 30 minutes per time). (Source: Xinhua)

A report published by several professional institutions, including the Chinese Sleep Research Society and the Chinese Medical Doctor Association says that around 38 percent of Chinese people are suffering from some form of sleep disorders. This is much higher than the global average of 27 percent announced by the World Health Organization. Dr. Zeng Rong a chief physician at the Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital said "With a faster pace of work and life, the age of people suffering from insomnia is dropping as well. Many adolescents, even pupils, come and say they have insomnia" and added that about two thirds of her patients with insomnia suffer from depression and anxiety. (Source: Xinhua)

The National Bureau of Statistics reported that the Chinese population reached 1.3678 billion at the end of 2014. According to the Bureau, 7.1 million people were added to the national population in the past year. This data takes into account the total number born, 16.87 million, and offsets it with those who passed away, 9.77 million.
The number of babies born in China last year increased by 470,000 compared to 2013, and according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, this is due to a series of moves to relax the family planning restrictions. Since late 2013, 29 of the 31 provincial regions on the mainland have enacted policies that allow couples to have a second baby if either partner is a single child. Little over 1 million such couples have registered with the authorities to have a second child by the end of last year, and the baby boom could last for 5-8 years, the commission said. (Source: China Daily)