BEIJING, Sept. 6 -- The number of registered nurses in China has increased from merely 30,000 to more than 4 million over the past 70 years, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced Friday.

The number has been continuously growing: from some 30,000 when New China was founded in 1949 to over 400,000 in 1978, 1.35 million in 2005, reaching 4 million at the end of 2018, said Jiao Yahui, an official with the commission, at a press conference.

Registered nurses make up nearly 50 percent of the country's healthcare professionals, marking an optimized personnel structure by reversing the long-standing situation where doctors far outnumbered nurses in China, said Jiao, noting that the ratio is 55 percent worldwide.