Feb
24, 2007
While China's economy has been rapidly
expanding, the country's social welfare is declining fast. Two important factors
contributing to this downfall are the noticeable spread of disease among
Chinese people, combined with a neglect of public health concerns.
The
latest issue of the British medical journal The Lancet features a report
focusing on the spread of syphilis throughout China. A joint effort between
Professor Myron Cohen, director of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Center for Infectious Diseases, and the China National AIDS/STD Prevention and
Control Center, the report explored the epidemic situation of sexually
transmitted diseases among Chinese people from 1989 to 2005. Results revealed
that in 1993 the reported total rate of cases of syphilis in China was 0.2
cases per 100,000 people, but by 2005 this number jumped to 5.7 cases. Chinese
virology experts suggest that these figures may even be considerably
underestimated.
Furthermore, from 1991 to 2005 incidence of
congenital syphilis had grown at a very rapid rate with an average yearly
increase of 71.9 percent, and more syphilis cases were found in urban areas
such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Hainan and Zhejiang. Professor Cohen
concludes that the actual situation is quite possibly much worse than his
findings indicate.
But
it isn't just the spread of syphilis that is worrisome. A variety of diseases
are seeing an alarming increase throughout China in recent years. The following
health statistics come directly from China's Ministry of Health and other
institutional agencies.
Recent figures find that approximately 840,000
people are infected with HIV in China. According to the United Nation agencies
within the country, the number of HIV infected individuals is expected to rise
to 10 million by 2010 unless aggressive prevention measures are soon
implemented.
China ranks second in the world in TB
infections, with 80 percent of these cases coming from rural areas of China.
Over 400 million people have been infected with the TB bacillus, five million
TB patients, and two million infectious lung TB patients. The number of annual
TB deaths reach up to 150,000.
In
China, 30 million persons are chronically infected with Hepatitis B and another
120 million are found to be carriers for the virus.
Over
the past five years, the number of Chinese with chronic bilharziasis—a deadly
parasitic flatworm—have steadily remained above 800,000. The infection rate of
people and livestock with this disease can be as high as 68 percent in some areas.
In
addition, 200 million individuals throughout China suffer from occupational
diseases—perhaps not a surprising statistic in a country where more than 1,600
businesses are found to be involved in producing poisonous products. Be it
coal, chemical, metallurgical, power, building materials, electronics, lighting
industry and other areas with high-risk for occupational disease, a whopping
134,244 workers are found to have been suffering from occupational ailments.
And this is based only on data collected from the 54 percent of individuals
employed in these hazardous fields who had participated in a physical
examination.
According to the China Institute of
Environmental Sciences, among the country's 1.3 billion people, more than
400,000 die from air pollution related diseases every year.
The
spread of these diseases is not merely a case of developmental strategy, but
because public health remains a low priority throughout the country. In many
areas, work places that expose employees to poisonous and harmful substances
were built primarily to foster economic development, not with concern for labor
protection. These enterprises are often fittingly referred to as the country's
"Blood GDP." China's large sex industry—said to have as much as six
million workers—is not the only factor to blame on the country's rampant
increase of AIDS. Local government has also played a significant role in the
spread of the disease. One prime example has been the "plasma
economy" promoted in Henan Province. This debacle saw large numbers of
rural Chinese selling their blood for profit but in less than sanitary
conditions. The result was a contaminated blood supply that spread through
transfusions throughout the country.
High
incidents of schistosomiasis (parasites found primarily in developing
countries) is a prime example of such diseases that stem from a government that
puts little interest into matters of public health. In some parts of China's
Hunan province, the system in place for controlling schistosomiasis had collapsed
as far back as the mid-80s, prompting the parasite to re-emerge. Those who die
due to diseases related to air pollution fall victim to the severe damage that
China's environmental health has endured. Some mention that the loss of social
justice is the price that China's poor has had to pay for the country's
economic development, but this development has also cost the health and
well-being of all its citizens.
As
the Chinese communist regime continues to put a remarkably low priority on
public health, diseases flourish throughout the country. According to data
published by the WHO, nearly half of the Chinese population cannot afford their
medical expenses. Chinese researchers also point that the percentage of public
health expenditure in the GDP has seen a consistent decrease since 1990. WHO
statistics find[s] that China's total health expenditure is strongly moving in
the direction of privatization, while a severe lack of governmental aid has put
the country's public health system in crisis. It wasn't until the spread of
SARS in 2003 that Chinese people began to realize just how frail their public
anti-epidemic system truly was.
Just
how healthy is the current Chinese population? One of the main reasons for the
decline of the ancient Babylon Kingdom was the spread of syphilis. Due to the
illness, they remained unable to draft enough military strength to resist an
intruding foreign enemy. Recently China has been discussing the rise of great
nations. But if one considers China's current social situation, perhaps the
decline of great nations is a more relevant topic. For a nation's populace
deteriorating quickly in both physical and mental health, one must question
what denotes a true aspiration toward greatness.
