A medical aid project aimed at helping millions of poverty-stricken people across the country kicked off in Beijing on Monday.

The project will improve the medical treatment in nearly 600 major poverty-stricken counties, benefiting 200 million people in those areas, said He Daofeng, vice president of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA).

The General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in Beijing and the CFPA will jointly carry out this project over the next five years, he said.

According to the project, the General Hospital of PLA will provide medical education and training of medical workers for 100 hospitals in those poor counties, and send two teams of medical experts per year to the countryside.

About 10,000 medical workers from 300 county-level hospitals will receive training in five years, the project said.

A national health service survey found that nearly 30 percent of rural residents in China's vast western region return to poverty because of disease.

In 2002, the CFPA initiated the medical aid campaign for poor people. It has invested more than 100 million yuan (some US$12 million) in poverty reduction projects in the past four years.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2006)