China expects 48,000 new HIV cases this year

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Essential News from The Associated PressAAA  Nov. 30, 2011 7:12 AM ET
China expects 48,000 new HIV cases this year
AP    Sun Ya from Henan, left, shows a copy of an official document on HIV-infected children as he and others speak to journalists inside a medical clinic near the Ministry of Finance in Beijing Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. A handful of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance but abandoned the plan because of the tight security. China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Sun Ya from Henan, left, shows a copy of an official document on HIV-infected children as he and others speak to journalists inside a medical clinic near the Ministry of Finance in Beijing Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. A handful of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance but abandoned the plan because of the tight security. China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) A woman from Henan in central China shows cards bearing a photo of her son and the words "I'm an AIDS victim, we want to live, we want safeguard judicial justice" while speaking to journalists inside a medical clinic near the Ministry of Finance in Beijing Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. A handful of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance but abandoned the plan because of the tight security. China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Petitioners prepare to shows a protest banner which reads "affected by AIDS" to journalists inside a medical clinic near the Ministry of Finance in Beijing Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. A handful of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance but abandoned the plan because of the tight security. China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Students prepare red ribbons for an AIDS themed art exhibition at a college in Suining, in southwestern China's Sichuan province, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. (AP Photo) CHINA OUTeval("var currentItemd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 1;");eval("var nextd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;");eval("var previousd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;"); BEIJING (AP) — China will have about 780,000 people infected with the AIDS virus by the end of this year, state media reported Wednesday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex.

The official Xinhua News Agency said a report from the Ministry of Health and the United Nations estimates there will be about 48,000 new HIV infections in China this year. Xinhua quoted the report as saying the virus remains "mildly prevalent" in China.

HIV gained a foothold in China largely because of unsanitary blood plasma buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals. Health authorities say heterosexual sex has now overtaken drug abuse as the main method of transmission.

After ignoring or demonizing people with AIDS for much of the 1980s and 1990s, China's authoritarian government has taken a more compassionate line on the disease and combating its spread in recent years. But people with AIDS still face difficulties in getting treatment and compensation, and authorities remain deeply suspicious of independent activists.

On Wednesday, a handful of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance in Beijing but abandoned the plan because of the tight security there.

Organizer Sun Ya said the group was demanding government compensation. Sun's 15-year-old son contracted HIV from a tainted blood transfusion in 2002 at the Peking University Dental Hospital in Beijing.

Sun said he and others have tried to use the legal system to fight for compensation but courts have declined to take their cases, so they have resorted to sporadic protests in the capital.

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China seizes 65M counterfeit pills, some harmful

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BEIJING (AP) — Police in China have seized more than 65 million fake pills and arrested 114 suspects during a four-month investigation into counterfeit drugs.

The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Friday that a criminal network extending over eight provinces used starch or corn powder to make fake medicines and repackaged drugs past their use-by dates.

The ministry says police also found animal feed, chemical pigments and other ingredients that are harmful to people.

Police started the investigation after discovering that a woman in central Henan province had substituted genuine medicines with fake products in pharmacies.

The ministry says 1,000 police officers broke up 117 dens that produced or sold fake medicine via websites or advertisements.

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China fighting polio outbreak

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30 September 2011 Last updated at 23:04 GMT By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website Polio has reappeared in China A massive vaccination campaign is under way in China after an outbreak of polio, more than 10 years after the country was declared polio free. What are the implications for the global effort to eradicate the disease?

Health officials in China are taking strong measures in their drive to stop an outbreak of polio.

Children who have been given the vaccine are marked behind the ears with indelible ink to make sure there is no confusion.

Vaccination is taking place in homes, kindergartens, schools, bus stations and airports, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which is leading the worldwide effort to wipe out the disease.

Continue reading the main story Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus which invades the nervous system and may cause irreversible paralysisIt can strike at any age but mainly affects children under fiveThere is no cure for polio, it can only be preventedPolio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life.As long as a single child remains infected with polio, unvaccinated children in all countries are at risk

Source: World Health Organization

Until a few weeks ago, polio was a disease of the past in China, as in most countries around the world. But the discovery of 10 cases of polio in the western province of Xinjiang, and one death, has lead to millions of children and young adults being vaccinated.

Genetic studies show the virus came across the border from neighbouring Pakistan. Polio still has a foothold in Pakistan, along with three other countries - India, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

There have also been sporadic cases in other formerly polio-free countries - such as parts of western Africa - as the virus is brought in by travellers.

"There is an urgent need to eradicate this disease in the remaining endemic areas because it is from there that it will continue to spread," says Oliver Rosenbauer, of the World Health Organization.

"The focus has to be on the endemic countries."

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988, with the aim of ridding the world of polio. It has two main strategies - mass vaccination and careful surveillance for new cases.

Since 1988, the number of cases have fallen by more than 99%. But persistent pockets of polio transmission in northern India, northern Nigeria and on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to put unvaccinated children everywhere at risk. Since 2000, polio cases have hovered at about 1,000 a year.

Delivering vaccine to impoverished states in India is a major challenge

India, with its huge population and poor health facilities in some states, presents a major challenge in efforts to wipe out polio. It has reported only a single case this year, but, concerned about the possibly of polio spreading from Pakistan, the government has set up vaccination booths at major border crossings.

Security issues in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan make vaccination programmes there very difficult; while Nigeria, which has about 30 cases this year, is continuing its efforts to control the virus, after previous setbacks.

A further challenge is funding. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative says the funding gap up to the end of 2012 is $590m.

"This is really a risk we shouldn't have to be taking at this stage of the game," says Oliver Rosenbauer.

Some observers believe we have reached the last mile in eradicating polio.

But Dr Heidi Larson, a vaccine expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says it's not clear how long the last mile will take.

"We're very close but we've been close for over a decade now," she says. "We are in the last mile but that last mile can take us six months or it can take six years.

"The most important thing is that we cannot give up, because if we do the cost will be tremendous - at a financial level, at a health impact level and an overall cost of public confidence in some vaccines."

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China Launches A Space Laboratory

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China launched an experimental spacecraft from the Gobi desert this week. The unmanned Tiangong-1 (which means "Heavenly Palace-1") is expected to orbit Earth for two years. Journalist Miles O'Brien discusses planned docking missions for the craft and China's space program.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, host: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. China launched its first space laboratory this week. The unmanned Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace-1, left the Gobi Desert yesterday, entered Earth orbit. China plans to launch another unmanned craft, and according to a Chinese state media statement, to, quote, experiment in rendezvous and docking and to eventually develop a space station. Sounds very familiar.

So will China one day have its own version of the International Space Station complete with astronauts? Maybe it's a step in going to the moon. Joining me now to talk more about it is my guest, Miles O'Brien. He's a journalist who's been covering aviation, space and science for 30 years. He's a science correspondent for "The News Hour" on PBS. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Ira, it's a pleasure.

FLATOW: My joy. What do you know about this spacecraft here?

O'BRIEN: Well, it's - you wouldn't call it a space race, would you, because the Chinese - I guess if you were measuring it in geological timeframes, yes, but they move in a very plodding way, a methodical way. And those who would suggest that there is some sort of new space race underway, frankly, I think, say so a bit wistfully, hoping there'll be another space race because, after all, it fueled a lot of expense and spending on this side to go to the moon.

FLATOW: Well, so they're not in a race with anybody, but they're going to be making progress, doing something, I would imagine.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, this is a key thing. To call this a space station is a bit of a stretch. It's not designed to keep people up there indefinitely, as the International Space Station does, now more than a decade, of course, in that case.

In this case, as time goes on, and as they add to it, they will tend it for longer periods of time. What's really crucial about this, Ira, is this will demonstrate to them and to the world that they can rendezvous and dock at a target. That's a significant piece of the space puzzle.

If you're really going to be a player in space, you have to solve the rendezvous and docking problem, and that is not a simple problem. And so this is their target, if nothing else, to dock to. They'll fly a couple of unmanned missions to do that, and then at the end of 2012, the plan is to send some Jap(ph) - excuse me, Chinese taikonauts to spend a shorter period of time but eventually longer periods of time for later crews at this tended object.

FLATOW: Have they not expressed their desire to go to the moon someday?

O'BRIEN: Yeah, we've heard that. We've heard, you know, talk about maybe one day going to Mars. There's all kinds of grand aspirations there. They just have moved in a very slow way. Their first manned flight was back in 2003. They've flown three manned missions. Last one was in 2008. So they're moving in a slow process, but I guess in the context of Chinese history, it's a perfectly appropriate timescale, right?

FLATOW: Well, you know, the obvious question is we don't have a spacecraft to go to the International Space Station. The Russians don't have one now either. Why not ask the Chinese?

O'BRIEN: Why shouldn't we hedge our bets? Why shouldn't we be able to hail another taxi, as it were, right?

FLATOW: Exactly, exactly.

O'BRIEN: And this is - this gets into a lot of geopolitics, as you can imagine. The Chinese space program is pretty opaque to the rest of the world, to say the least. There are a lot of political considerations in play when you start partnering with the Chinese. The concern, of course, is that U.S. technology would be borrowed and not returned, so to speak, by the Chinese, and so there is reluctance to create the kinds of partnerships that you would need in order to have a Chinese spacecraft docking at the International Space Station.

Now, they haven't even proved they can dock yet. Now, we'll see. If they start docking at this tended object, and they succeed, maybe that will change. But the politics may not.

FLATOW: And I understand that on this space station are some International Space Station flags that were brought onboard.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, I mean, I think the Chinese, frankly, they would like to be a part of the International Space Station, if they had their druthers. But right now the politics don't work so well. The Chinese have a long and fruitful relationship with the Russian space program.

If you look at their manned capsule, the Shenzhou, it looks just like a Soyuz rocket. It's not a complete knockoff, it's a little bit larger, and the inside is modified to their liking, but the truth is the Russians and the Chinese have worked together. When I was in Star City years ago, there were some Chinese taikonauts there at the time. I was told to look the other way. It was kind of unofficial at that time.

And so they had this strong relationship. I think if the Russians were calling the shots, the Chinese might be part of the space station, but of course the U.S. has a say-so in that.

FLATOW: CCTV, the Chinese TV, released a video animation of the craft. And playing behind in the background was "America the Beautiful." How can that be a mistake?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: That is either some really strange irony, or somebody's in deep trouble today, Ira, and is in a cell right next to the Tiananmen Square tank guy or something. I don't know.

FLATOW: It was very funny. We were watching it on the Internet. So they're going to launch this second ship, something, as you say, to prove they can rendezvous with the space vehicle. No people will be onboard this one either. But this seems to be saying, if I hear you correctly, sort of planting a flag into a next generation of space travel.

They're saying we're here, we're not only eating your lunch in production of consumable goods, we're now getting into the space business.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, you know, you say the next generation, but in a way what they're doing seems to be a bit of an anachronism of another era. You knw, we sort of have been there and done this. But this is also, this is part of - the big picture here is Chinese, their view of superpower status and supremacy in the world.

And it is their view, I've talked to them over the years, trying to get in the door there and do some work there, it's kind of hard to get in, it is their view that this is a big part of, if nothing else, the geopolitics, the soft power that space exerts in the world.

FLATOW: Of course, they showed us some of their power years ago when they blew up a satellite, did they not?

O'BRIEN: And this is what gives people a little pause in the West. In 2007, the Chinese had a defunct weather satellite. For reasons no one fully really understands outside of the Chinese military - and it is a military-controlled program, let's not forget that - in any case, they lobbed a ballistic missile at their own defunct satellite and obliterated it, to prove they could do it.

But what was - the consequence of this was it created just thousands and thousands of piece of hazardous space junk in low-Earth orbit, and it also made an interesting statement about the Chinese program, how much is it a militaristic - how much is it about Star Wars, how much of it is about, you know, the space shuttle and the space station.

FLATOW: Of course all our astronauts were military people to begin with also.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, I mean we make - of course Eisenhower was very clear when he created NASA, let's make it a civilian program. But it was populated by military people. So that might have been a difference without a distinction to the rest of the world, including the Chinese.

FLATOW: Well, Miles, thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: It was a pleasure, Ira.

FLATOW: For taking time to be with us. Miles O'Brien, who you can see on PBS, he's a correspondent for PBS and a science journalist, been on - on 30 years or so. You'll see his reports on "The News Hour" on PBS.

O'BRIEN: When dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

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How Community Supported Agriculture Sprouted In China

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Enlarge Daniel Charles/NPR

Little Donkey Farms' mascot, Professor, is a symbol of the challenges faced by the farm

Daniel Charles/NPR Little Donkey Farms' mascot, Professor, is a symbol of the challenges faced by the farm

It's a little hard to tell, walking through Little Donkey Farm, in a village northwest of Beijing, whether this is just a charming but ineffectual protest against the tide of Chinese history, or a sign that the tide may be shifting.

Little Donkey is an organic farm. (Yes, there is an actual donkey. More about him later.) Dozens of different vegetables grow here: Eggplant, green beans, Chinese cabbage, corn, and some that I've never seen before. There's also a small barn filled with pigs.

It's also the first Chinese Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. Four hundred families pay an annual membership and get, in exchange, a share of the harvest. Another 260 families rent small plots of land for their own gardens.

 

Shi Yan, a soft-spoken but determined young graduate student from Beijing's Renmin University, set up this operation three years ago — inspired, in part, by her experience working for six months with Earthrise Farm, a small CSA in western Minnesota. (There are at least 4,000 CSA farms in the U.S.)

"It changed my life," says Shi Yan. She arrived at Earthrise Farm thinking that she would study its business model, "but living with them, I realized that it's not just a model, it's a style of life. Before that, although I cared about rural problems, I never thought about living in a village. After I came back, I moved to this village and started this farm."

It was an audacious move, because it goes against every recent trend in Chinese agriculture — which, it's worth remembering, feeds 20 percent of the people on earth. Young people, especially young men, have been abandoning rural villages for better jobs in cities.

Little Donkey, being organic, uses only manure and compost for fertilizer, but most Chinese farmers abandoned those methods over the past forty years. They're now among the world's biggest users of synthetic fertilizer, and it's helped them boost their food production dramatically.

There's now plenty of food in China, but some people worry about its safety — especially since a nationwide scandal in 2008 involving toxic contamination of milk powder and tests (carried out by the environmental group Greenpeace) that found traces of banned pesticides on supermarket vegetables.

Now, more people are buying food that's labeled "organic." More people are visiting Little Donkey. And at least three dozen other Chinese CSAs are now in business.

But the food is not the only thing that brings people here. In a country that sometimes seems obsessed with making and selling things, Little Donkey Farm is a tiny island of Chinese counterculture. "It's mostly for relaxing," says Gao Xiang, who's there with his family, spending a Sunday tending their part of the community garden.

"Little Donkey Farm isn't just the land, or the food. We can know each other and create new ideas. We make friends here," says Fang Danmin, an editor. "It's small, but it's a trend."

Watching it all, from inside his pen, is an actual donkey named Professor. It's the farm mascot, a symbol of its ideals, but also - unintentionally - the difficulty of realizing those ideals in today's China.

"About this donkey, we have a long story," says Shi Yan. "Five or six years ago, we had a very hot discussion about whether China should keep traditional, small-scale farming. One side said we need to use donkeys to plow the land. The other side said we need tractors. At the end, my advisor Professor Wen said, 'We won't discuss this anymore. But I will buy a donkey, and my wife will name the donkey!'"

"But the embarrassing thing is," Shi Yan continues, "we hoped that we could use this donkey to plow the land. But then we figured out that in the village, there was not even one farmer who know how to work with the donkey! So right now, she can only stay in the pen."

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Newborn deaths halved in China

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16 September 2011 Last updated at 00:18 GMT China has made great strides in lowering death rates in newborn babies A campaign encouraging women in China to give birth in hospital has cut newborn deaths by half, says a study in The Lancet.

Researchers from Beijing and London found that babies born in hospital were two to three times less likely to die in their first month than those born at home.

The study analysed 1.5 million births between 1996 and 2008 in China.

Some experts said other factors could have played a part in the findings.

Since 2000, China has been promoting hospital delivery, and nearly all babies are now born in hospital except in the poorest regions.

A team from Peking University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used data from China's Maternal and Mortality Surveillance System to examine trends in neonatal mortality by cause and socioeconomic region.

The results showed that deaths in neonates (within the first month of life) fell by 62% over 12 years up to 2008.

The neonatal mortality rate in China fell from 24.7 per 1000 livebirths between 1996 and 1998, to 9.3 per 1000 between 2007 and 2008.

In urban hospitals in China, the mortality rate for newborns is five per 1000. For babies born at home in urban areas it is 17 per 1000.

Continue reading the main story

In the long run you have to get women into hospitals if you want to lower mortality rates”

End Quote Prof Carine Ronsmans LSHTM The findings also showed that babies born in hospitals in the poorer rural areas were almost four times more likely to die than babies born in hospitals in urban areas.

The study suggested this could be the result of lower quality hospital care in rural areas, or hospital care being sought too late in the poorest areas.

Care is crucial

Professor Carine Ronsmans, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said other countries could learn from China's progress in reducing neonatal mortality.

"We can't prove in this study that it's the hospitals that made the difference but there is a strong indication that it's much safer to give birth in hospital than at home.

"There is a very big drive in poor countries to do community-based interventions because people think it's cheaper and more effective.

"But in the long run you have to get women into hospitals if you want to lower mortality rates for mother and baby."

And Prof Ronsmans cautioned that quality of care was still of primary importance in China.

"Hospital delivery does not save babies' lives unless high-quality neonatal care is available and accessible in the crucial first few days after delivery."

Writing about the research in The Lancet, Dr Diego Bassani and Daniel Roth, from the Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto in Canada, said the link between increased numbers of hospital deliveries and reduced neonatal mortality rates was not straightforward.

"The rate and magnitude of the increase in the proportion of facility-based deliveries between 1996 and 2008 varied substantially across China's five socioeconomic strata, which contrasts with the uniformity of the proportional decline in neonatal mortality.

"This finding suggests that factors other than facility-based delivery could have been involved.

"Although the investigators report strong associations between neonatal mortality and place of birth (home versus hospital)… Many characteristics differentiate families that choose (or have access to) facility deliveries and those who deliver at home; such differences would be expected to exist within, and not just between, sociodemographic categories."

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Newborn deaths halved in China

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16 September 2011 Last updated at 00:18 GMT China has made great strides in lowering death rates in newborn babies A campaign encouraging women in China to give birth in hospital has cut newborn deaths by half, says a study in The Lancet.

Researchers from Beijing and London found that babies born in hospital were two to three times less likely to die in their first month than those born at home.

The study analysed 1.5 million births between 1996 and 2008 in China.

Some experts said other factors could have played a part in the findings.

Since 2000, China has been promoting hospital delivery, and nearly all babies are now born in hospital except in the poorest regions.

A team from Peking University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used data from China's Maternal and Mortality Surveillance System to examine trends in neonatal mortality by cause and socioeconomic region.

The results showed that deaths in neonates (within the first month of life) fell by 62% over 12 years up to 2008.

The neonatal mortality rate in China fell from 24.7 per 1000 livebirths between 1996 and 1998, to 9.3 per 1000 between 2007 and 2008.

In urban hospitals in China, the mortality rate for newborns is five per 1000. For babies born at home in urban areas it is 17 per 1000.

Continue reading the main story

In the long run you have to get women into hospitals if you want to lower mortality rates”

End Quote Prof Carine Ronsmans LSHTM The findings also showed that babies born in hospitals in the poorer rural areas were almost four times more likely to die than babies born in hospitals in urban areas.

The study suggested this could be the result of lower quality hospital care in rural areas, or hospital care being sought too late in the poorest areas.

Care is crucial

Professor Carine Ronsmans, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said other countries could learn from China's progress in reducing neonatal mortality.

"We can't prove in this study that it's the hospitals that made the difference but there is a strong indication that it's much safer to give birth in hospital than at home.

"There is a very big drive in poor countries to do community-based interventions because people think it's cheaper and more effective.

"But in the long run you have to get women into hospitals if you want to lower mortality rates for mother and baby."

And Prof Ronsmans cautioned that quality of care was still of primary importance in China.

"Hospital delivery does not save babies' lives unless high-quality neonatal care is available and accessible in the crucial first few days after delivery."

Writing about the research in The Lancet, Dr Diego Bassani and Daniel Roth, from the Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto in Canada, said the link between increased numbers of hospital deliveries and reduced neonatal mortality rates was not straightforward.

"The rate and magnitude of the increase in the proportion of facility-based deliveries between 1996 and 2008 varied substantially across China's five socioeconomic strata, which contrasts with the uniformity of the proportional decline in neonatal mortality.

"This finding suggests that factors other than facility-based delivery could have been involved.

"Although the investigators report strong associations between neonatal mortality and place of birth (home versus hospital)… Many characteristics differentiate families that choose (or have access to) facility deliveries and those who deliver at home; such differences would be expected to exist within, and not just between, sociodemographic categories."

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. China newborn baby deaths fall with improved healthcare

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Far fewer newborn babies in China are dying compared to 15 years ago, researchers reported on Friday, underscoring the success of a Chinese programme to encourage women to deliver in hospitals rather than at home.
Deaths among newborn babies fell 62 percent to 9.3 for every 1,000 live births in 2008, compared to 24.7 in 1996, they wrote in a paper published in The Lancet medical journal.
This improved figure puts China nearly on a par with Thailand at 8, Sri Lanka at 9 and Venezuela at 10. Advanced countries typically have much lower figures, such as 3 in Britain, 4 in the United States and 1 in Singapore, according to the United Nation's Children's Fund.
Led by Xing Linfeng and Yan Guo from Peking University in Beijing and Carine Ronsmans from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, the researchers analysed data from 37 Chinese urban districts and 79 rural counties.
While less than half of all women in China gave birth in hospital in 1988, hospital births had become almost universal by 2008 with the exception of women in the least developed rural areas, they found.
However, some disparity still remained as babies born in hospitals in poorer rural areas were four times more likely to die than babies born in urban hospitals.
"Although most county-level or higher-level hospitals can deliver the elements of skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care that are essential to ensure neonatal survival ... many township hospitals do not fulfil these criteria," the researchers wrote.
An abstract of the paper can be found at: here(11)61096-9/abstract
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn)

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