This Day, That Year

Item from Feb 24, 1988, in China Daily: Employees of the Baitian'e (White Swan) Restaurant in Beijing's Dongsi Street disinfect dishware to prevent the spread of hepatitis A.

Beijing health authorities have launched a city-wide sanitation inspection to prevent the spread of hepatitis A from elsewhere in the country. ...

Hepatitis A is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis A virus.

The disease is closely associated with unsafe water or food, inadequate sanitation and poor personal hygiene.

Epidemics related to contaminated food or water can erupt explosively, such as the epidemic in Shanghai in 1988 that affected about 300,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Apart from hepatitis A, hepatitis B and C also pose major health threats.

An estimated 100 million people - 25 percent of the world's total - are living with chronic hepatitis in China, making it the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the country, Samuel So, a professor at Stanford's School of Medicine, told China Daily in a recent interview.

In 1978, China began implementing planned vaccination. The country expanded the program in 2007.

In all, 14 vaccines have been offered for free to cover 15 diseases, according the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

The country has seen more than 95 percent decline in attack and death rates from measles, diphtheria, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis and tetanus over the past 30 years since planned vaccination kicked off.

China is among countries with the highest immunization rates against hepatitis B, according to the WHO. The rate is 90 percent among newborns.