Japan Donates Polio Vaccine to ChinaTo help enhance polio-eradication drive in China, Japan has contributed Thursday 15.6 million polio vaccines to the country.The donation, valued at 3.12 million yuan (about US$377,000), is the ninth donation by Japan since 1993 when Japan made its first donation of polio vaccines to China. Zhu Qingsheng, vice-minister of Health, and Nobuyuki Sugimoto, minister of the Japanese embassy to China, were present at the donation ceremony held here Thursday. On October 29, 2000, the Western Pacific region was announced as a "non-polio area". At the end of 1999, however, a polio infection case was detected in northwest China's Qinghai Province due to a polio virus being imported from abroad. Zhu Qingsheng pointed out that since the complete eradication of polio across the globe has not yet been realized, China is still subject to the risk of being infected by polio. China will strengthen international cooperation to prevent the spread of the polio virus across borders. |
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