11m children vaccinated in anti-hepatitis B project
(AP)
Updated: 2006-07-26 09:34
Some 11.1 million Chinese children have been vaccinated against hepatitis B
since 2002 in a campaign to stop the spread of the disease, which has
chronically infected an estimated 120 million people in China, the government
said Tuesday.
The immunizations are part of a five-year, US$76 million (euro60 million)
effort targeting central China and the country's poor west. It is co-sponsored
by the Chinese government and the GAVI Alliance, a Geneva-based organization
launched by the United Nations, several governments, the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and the vaccine industry to tackle health problems in developing
countries.
The campaign took place in 22 provinces, where 5.5 million babies are born
each year, said Yang Weizhong, deputy director of China's Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. It focused on ensuring that infants were vaccinated
within 24 hours of birth, which doctors believe is the only way to prevent the
transmission of the disease from mother to newborn, he said. They were then
given two subsequent doses to complete immunization.
The project also targeted children under 5 who had not been vaccinated.
The campaign is believed to have prevented about 200,000 future deaths from
liver cancer, cirrhosis and other diseases linked to hepatitis B, according to
GAVI Alliance and China's Ministry of Health.
"The project has been successfully implemented so far,"
said Jiang Zuojin, a Chinese deputy health minister, at a news conference.
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