Chinese government is promising a zero tolerance attitude to doping for the 2008 Olympic Games from August 8 to 24 and the Paralympic Games from September 6 to 17 in Beijing.

Here are basic facts and figures about health care in China:

Drug supervision: China had reported 64,000 drug supervision officials working for 2,692 drug regulatory departments by the end of 2007.

The government has promulgated 17 administrative regulations concerning drugs.

The national drugs watchdog, the State Drug Administration was established in 1998, and the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) was founded on the basis of the former in 2003.

By the end of last year, China had 2,692 drug regulatory departments, including 31 at provincial level, 339 at municipal (prefecture) level and 2,321 at county (county-level city) level (including districts and counties of municipalities directly under the central government); with more than 1,000 technical supervision organizations with 64,000 personnel.

Medical institution: 315,000

Hospitals: 60,000

Disease control and prevention centers: 3,540

Medical workers: 4.68 million, including 2.04 million medical practitioners and assistant medical practitioners, and 1.47 million registered nurses.

Average life expectancy: 72 years

Pharmacists: 150,000 had pharmacist qualifications by the end of 2007.

Traditional Chinese medicine: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is often a complex mixture of herbs and animal products. By the end of 2007, 2,469 TCM varieties were under state protection.

China has 7,014 national standards for TCM: of these, the 2005 National Pharmacopoeia records 582 kinds of unprocessed drugs, prepared crude drugs, fats and extracts, as well as 564 kinds of TCM preparations.

More than 9,000 kinds of TCM preparations have been approved by the state to be sold on the market, and about 58,000 approval numbers have been granted.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2008)