China should invest more money in promoting public health for the
country's macroeconomic development, a health expert said
Wendesday.
Any investment needed to improve the health of the 1.3 billion
people in China would be much less than the losses caused by poor
health, said Cai Renhua, director of the China National Health
Economics Institute based in Beijing.
Cai was speaking at a seminar in Beijing on macroeconomics and
health jointly sponsored by the State Development Planning
Commission, the ministries of finance and health, and the World
Health Organization.
China currently accounts for one-fifth of the world's population.
The average life expectancy of the population - a major index of a
country's level of health - has increased from 35 years in 1950 to
71 in 1995.
However, health indices in China have improved at a much slower
rate than the per capita income, especially during the past 20
years, said Professor Hu Angang from Beijing's Tsinghua
University.
The total health expenditure of the Chinese mainland in 2000 was
only 5.3 percent of its GDP, just 0.3 percentage points higher than
the minimum recommended by the WHO.
In
China, the cost of treating hepatitis B alone has exceeded 26
billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) in a single year.
There are serious disparities in health-care coverage and
substantial differences in residents' health both between urban and
rural areas, and between coastal and inland provinces.
China's more than 800 million rural residents make up about 70
percent of the total population but only use about 30 percent of
the country's medical resources.
For example, the usage rate of hospital beds at county level or
higher has decreased from 80.9 percent in 1990 to 60.8 percent in
2000, Cai noted.
And less than 30 percent of the total population are covered by
China's system of medical insurance system.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia
University in New York, said: "Investments in health, if properly
directed, can yield extraordinary results in terms of lives saved
and increased economic productivity."
Sachs, also chairman of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and
Health, gave a presentation at the seminar on a report compiled by
his commission over the past two years.
In
the report, the commissioners said they believe that improved
health is a critical requirement for economic development in poor
countries.
(China Daily December 19, 2002)
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