In 2003, China's medicine supervision authorities received 30,000 reports of adverse effects from using medicine, more than the sum of cases reported in the previous years since 1949.

Experts attributed the sudden increase of the figure to the setting up of a complete adverse effect monitoring network across the country. In 2002, provincial level adverse effect monitoring centers were set up in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country. Some provinces also extended the network to county level.

Even so, Bian Zhenjia, deputy director in charge of the drug safety department under the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), said that compared with China's large number of population and medicine users, the number of adverse effect reports was still few, and many cases failed to be reported.

Bian said that 99 percent of adverse effect reports come from medical departments. But medicine producers and medicine circulation organizations bear little awareness of adverse effects reporting.

To decrease the possibility of adverse effects from medicine use, the government has decided to tighten control and monitoring of the use of antibiotics nationwide. Statistics show that reports of adverse effects from using antibiotics accounted for nearly 50 percent of the total adverse effect reports.

The SFDA, China's drug watchdog, has regulated that starting on July 1 this year, retail pharmacies must ask for a doctor's prescription when selling antibiotics to customers.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2004)