China works to free Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of endemics

Fights against another endemic, hydatid disease, is also in progress in Ganzi, another Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan.

The potentially fatal parasitic disease, which affects both animals and humans, infects nearly 40,000 people in Ganzi and leads to an annual economic loss of 94 million yuan in its livestock industry.

Since 2007, the provincial government has injected 1 million yuan annually to each of the 18 counties under the prefecture for endemic prevention and treatment. Patient screening, health education and infection monitoring are also in progress.

As of last October, more than 6,000 patients had undergone free formal treatment.

The prefecture government is also mapping out a comprehensive 10-year plan for hydatid disease prevention and control, aiming to reduce the infection rate among children under 10 by 40 percent by2015 in each county, and by 70 percent as of 2020.

Editor:Liu Anqi