(Snapshot of CCTV advertisement) |
A public welfare advertisement featuring a 5-year-old deaf girl has recently gone viral online, drawing attention to the problem of improper medicine use among children.
The young girl, Fu Xinuo, gave a “monologue” using sign language in the advertisement, which was issued by CCTV on Sept. 6. The advertisement tells Fu's story, describing how she lost her hearing after taking medicine for a fever three years ago.
“I knew there were sounds around me. I tried very hard to listen, but I just couldn't hear anything. Mom, I’m scared,” the little girl recounts in the ad. She later cries when describing how she lost her temper and began to throw things around, which in turn made her mother cry.
In addition to the 30,000 children like little Fu, countless more children suffer from damage to their livers, kidneys and nervous systems due to the improper use of medicine. Some 7,000 children die every year in China from the same cause, the CCTV ad reported, citing data from a 2016 investigative report.
The ad also informed viewers that there are slightly more than 60 kinds of medicine made exclusively for children, as compared to the more than 3,500 varieties available on the Chinese market.
There are no specific laws regulating children's medicine, nor are there any institutions that supervise the industry, news site Guancha reported.