Hepatitis B in China

Hepatitis B is recognized as endemic in China by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Introduction (numbers)

Over one-third of the world's population has been or is actively infected by hepatitis B virus (HBV).

An estimated 130 million Chinese are infected with the disease, about 10 per cent of China's total population and about one-third of the world's cases.

Almost 1 million new cases were reported in China last year.

Discrimination

Hepatitis B sufferers in China frequently face discrimination in all aspects of life and work.

For example, many Chinese employers and universities refuse to accept anyone who tests positive. Some kindergartens refuse admission to children who are carriers of the virus.

The hepatitis problem is a reflection of the vast developmental gap between China's rural and urban areas.

Spread of infection & Public awareness

Public awareness of the disease, which is spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, is not as high as it is for HIV and AIDS.

In many rural areas, doctors have reused syringes and unknowingly spread the disease, particularly among children.

Control

There have been relatively few campaigns aimed at ending the practice of reusing needles.

For standard preventative practice, a vaccination within the first 24 hours after birth is considered the best way to prevent the disease from spreading from mother to child. But it was not until 1992 that China included it as part of a routine immunization program.

Even then, the price was relatively high compared with other postnatal vaccinations, and families had to pay for it privately. Many suffers and their families, especially in the poor countryside, decided to go without.

According to China's Ministry of Health website, in 2005 did the PRC government belatedly pass a regulation making the vaccination free.

The PRC government has set a goal of reducing the overall hepatitis B infection rate to less than 7% over the next five years, and the rate of infection for children younger than 5 to less than 1%.

It has been said by medical observers of prevention programs in the country that the program can be a viable model for other developing countries trying to stop the spread of diseases (including hepatitis B) that can be prevented by vaccines.

But a study of some campaigns shows that more than 1 million Chinese babies born each year in the area covered by the government inititated programs are not receiving the vaccination.

Officials involved in the hepatitis B vaccination programs say that in many of China's poverty-stricken rural areas, children are delivered at home in remote mountain villages or nomadic[ herders' tents, far from hospitals and access to medical information.

China's Center for Disease Control have conducted research that supports the evidence that "there was and is still a huge bottleneck to ensure the delivery of the timely birth dosage to home births".

Another problem is the growing size of China's migrant labor force or "floating population."

Farmers or peasants who become urban laborers move frequently around the country and often do not seek medical attention. The immunization rate among them remains low, said China's CDC.