[Epoch Times, Medi 21, 2022](Epoch Times reporter Xu Jian’s comprehensive report) Experts warn that China is facing a variety of “hidden epidemics” such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, which may have social, economic and far-reaching consequences. demographic effect, and could destabilize the rule of the CCP.
The British “Guardian” reported on September 21 that if China does not adopt strict public health policies now, tens of millions of Chinese could die from non-communicable diseases in the next few decades, but the Chinese people know very little about him.
Multiple epidemics threaten Chinese lives
According to a study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the biggest cause of death among Chinese people is stroke, followed by heart disease, chronic lung disease and lung cancer Smoking is one of the important causes of many diseases.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the main killers in China, especially in the relatively industrial and urban north, where people are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, obesity and poor diet.
And China has more people with diabetes than any other country – more than 110 million, which the World Health Organization (WHO) describes as an “exploding” problem. That number is expected to climb to 150 million by the middle of the century.
According to the World Health Organization, diabetes and related complications kill nearly a million people each year in China, with more than 40 percent of those deaths classified as premature (deaths under the age of 70), another worrying condition.
Of the 1.1 billion smokers in the world, more than a third live in China, where around half the male population is addicted to tobacco. According to current projections, by 2050, one in three young Chinese men will die from smoking-related diseases – including lung cancer, respiratory disease and heart disease.
That’s a grim statistic for a country with a plummeting birth rate and a rapidly aging population. The United Nations predicts that by 2100, China’s population could drop from about 1.4 billion currently to about 1 billion.
Backlog of health problems ‘could get out of hand’
China is known as the second largest economy in the world, but the health of its people is the same as the health of a very poor country.
The Chinese have a 14.1% chance of dying from non-communicable diseases, ranking 76th in the world health rankings, while South Korea ranks first with 4.7%, the United Kingdom ranks 27th with 9% and the United States is position 44 with 11.8%. Experts have analyzed that the disease and medical pressures that the Chinese people are facing are so serious that they will threaten the rule of the Communist Party.
Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, said China’s decades-long backlog of social and health problems are emerging as “hidden epidemics, and they are ongoing epidemics.”
He said, “The outbreak of diet and nutrition problems in a short period of time, together with an unprecedented and unprecedented aging population, will be one of the greatest challenges facing China – not only for individual families, but to leadership as well. Set a political challenge.” “This (epidemic) problem can get out of hand,” he said. “It’s not going away.”
The Guardian took the example of Uncle Li, a farmer from Henan who suffers from type 2 diabetes. His medicine costs 40-50 yuan ($7.90) a month, but his income is only 100-150 yuan, and he has no money to inject their own insulin. Experts have analyzed that if urgent action is not taken, the number of people with type 2 diabetes in China is expected to increase to 150 million by 2040.
Not only can these diseases kill these patients at an alarming rate, but the huge cost of health care under the Communist Party eats up much of the household income, threatening significant social, economic and political consequences, especially the threat that leading policy of what Xi Jinping calls “common prosperity”.
Getting sick is very expensive for Chinese families. According to the study, one in three Chinese face catastrophic spending on healthcare – that is, more than 10 percent of their income goes to medical costs, and an estimated 15 percent of the population spend more than 25 percent of their total income on health care. .
According to Chen Xi, associate professor of health policy and economics at Yale University, the medical burden of diabetes is higher than problems such as high blood pressure. The prevalence of diabetes was 2.5%. It is now 10% and growing, “that would be a disaster”.
Responsible editor: Lin Yan#
