Officials highlight disability prevention work

China is progressing its national program of preventing disability by popularizing disability-prevention knowledge and improving premarital and pre-pregnancy check-ups to better control disabilities caused by genetic inheritance, diseases and injuries.

In December 2021, the State Council released an action plan focusing on disability prevention work, with an improved administrative mechanism and more sound social services for disability prevention covering people's full life cycle by 2025. The action plan also targets better public awareness in preventing disabilities and improved rehabilitation services to the disabled people.

Hu Xiangyang, a senior official from the China Disabled Persons' Federation, said at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday the federation has put great effort into publishing books and organizing activities focusing on disability prevention to help the raise awareness.

He said both central departments and local authorities have improved their consultancy and services on premarital and pre-pregnancy check-ups last year.

"We've also tightened management of chronic disease treatment and performed campaigns on visual and hearing impairment prevention or treatment," he said.

Xing Ruoqi, a senior official from the National Health Commission, said at the news conference the commission has taken measures to make maternal and infant health services and birth defects prevention services more accessible to average people.

She said the rate of people taking premarital health check-ups and women receiving prenatal examinations rose by 6.3 percentage points and 7.6 percentage points respectively in 2022 from 2020. Over 90 percent of infants have had medical check-ups for inherited metabolic diseases and hearing impairment in recent years.

She added the death rates of infants and children under five years caused by birth defects decreased by over 20 percent in 2021 compared with that in 2018.