The New Dominion

OpkeHessip and I are happy to roll out the newest version of the Xinjiang News Roundup. Our previous news roundup format consisted of a Saturday summarization of all events and news stories of note that occurred over the previous 7 days. Admittedly, the articles produced under this format were simultaneously a deluge of information and a hodgepodge of different, often unrelated topics and stories.

With our newest system we intend to publish a News Roundup almost every day of the week, with each particular day of the week corresponding to a particular theme. Yesterday, OpkeHessip published an overview of the economic news stories which came to prominence over the past week, today, I present to you health related stories which hit the press between last Tuesday and yesterday. The hope is that by grouping related stories together, our readers can get a larger, more integrated picture of events in Xinjiang and furthermore have a far easier time searching through our archives for particular stories.

• The party secretary of the XUAR Food and Medicine Supervision Bureau was happy to announce on the 5th that over 490 bottles of fake human serum albumin manufactured as medical supplies were ferreted out of albumin shipments by inspection crews. The “unprecedented” bust resulted from comprehensive operations intended to reform and improve the development, manufacture, distribution, and use of medical supplies throughout Xinjiang over 2007. In addition to the fake albumin find, the operations last year also discovered over 170 different varieties of drugs in 9000 packages to be fake. Over 4000 medicine and medical equipment cases were brought to court, 19 fake drug manufacturing rings were broken up, and 13 medical employees were handed over to employees for unscrupulous practices. The writer of this article candidly acknowledge that between the undeveloped pharmaceutical industry in Xinjiang (90% of medicine comes from other provinces) and rising medicine prices, fake medicine practices have become rampant.
• The 3rd of March was National Love Your Ears day, and the Xinjiang People’s Hospital celebrated by hosting a program of free outpatient services and health awareness activities warmly named the “I can hear the splendor of the Olympics” program. Free ear examinations were offered to previous patients with ear related ailments and programs were conducted to encourage better ear health care and to encourage better treatment to individuals with hearing handicaps.
• The XPCC Armed Police Headquarters Hospital will provide up to 20 thousand female Urumqi residents with free physical checkups between March and May as part of their “Through Women’s Wellbeing, A Peaceful Family” program. Women can pick up health history forms and health manuals at their local Family Planning Station and use this paperwork to receive the free checkup. The hospital will also provide discounts for certain medical treatment procedures.
• According to the XUAR Health Department, cases of measles in Xinjiang are showing a clear downward trend. Xinjiang has experienced an epidemic level outbreak of measles since the beginning of the year, with 12553 reported cases and 27 confirmed deaths. As health officials noticed the rising numbers of measle cases, prevention policies were re-hauled and 14.94 million yuan were allocated to epidemic containment measures. Around 870 thousand individuals have received emergency vaccinations and there have been 8236 full recoveries in districts considered epidemic hotspots.