Poverty, pollution and high medical bills mean that many Chinese patients, particularly those in rural areas, do not have access to the therapies they need. Asia correspondent A Nair looks at how Government policies are cutting drug prices and increasing provision of medical insurance to address this issue.
Cancer accounts for around 2.7 million deaths a year, which represents 13% of the total deaths in China. The condition and its treatment have come under scrutiny recently with the Chinese Health Ministry releasing a report that acknowledged the influence of pollution, poverty and a fledgling medical insurance system.
The situation is particularly bad in Shanghai where 82 people die from cancer every day. The city has a higher cancer rate than the national average, reporting nearly 50,000 new cases and 30,000 deaths every year. The cancer rate in Shanghai is about 390 per 100,000 people, compared with a national level of 286 per 100,000. Lung, colorectal, gastric, liver and breast cancer are the top five cancers among Shanghai residents.
In the rest of the country, there is one death from cancer every five minutes on the Chinese mainland, which translates into 2.7 million cancer deaths annually, according to the 2012 Cancer Registry Annual Report. Lung, stomach, colorectal and liver cancers were the main types of cancer occurring among the Chinese population, with lung, liver and stomach cancers being the top killers. Breast, lung, thyroid and colorectal cancers are rising sharply across the nation.
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