TOKYO - A delegation dispatched by the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation held a reception for Japanese friends in Tokyo Sunday evening in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan.Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Takeshi Noda, former head of the Komeito party Akihiro Ohta, as well as descendants of Toten Miyazaki and Shokichi Umeya, both friends with Sun Yat-sen who was a great forerunner of China's democratic revolution, attended the reception.Wang Jiarui, chairman of the foundation and head of the delegation, said at the reception that Soong Ching Ling, the late Honorary President of the People's Republic of China and in whose name the foundation was set up, married Sun Yat-sen in Japan in 1915.The couple's lasting friendship with their Japanese friends, while playing a positive role for China's democratic revolution, has been a much-told story on friendly exchanges between the peoples of China and Japan, Wang said.Wang added that the delegation, kicking off their visit on Saturday with the theme "ping-pong friendship," will also go to schools and local communities to communicate with Japanese ping-pong players and ping-pong lovers and common citizens.Yukio Hatoyama said that ping-pong diplomacy, the exchanges between ping-pong players of the United States and China in the early 1970s which first began at the 31st World Table Tennis Championships held in Nagoya, Japan in 1971, also paved the way for China and Japan to normalize bilateral diplomatic relationship.He said that he believes the delegation, including those who experienced the ping-pong diplomacy in the 1970s and ping-pong world champions, will make further contribution to bilateral friendship between China and Japan.Takeshi Noda, lawmaker from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that China has scored a lot of great achievements since implementing the reform and opening up policy 40 years ago and played an important role in almost all areas in the world.He said he saw no reason that China and Japan shouldn't stay friendly to each other in the next 40 years, and that as China and Japan are close neighbors, it is very important for them to have a friendly relationship.Earlier in the day, members of the delegation took part in the first China-Japan International Ping-pong Communication Competition here in Tokyo.The delegation will head for Nagoya on Tuesday to attend a high-school ping-pong communication event and visit the Ping-pong Diplomacy Memorial Wall. basketball silicone braceletscamo silicone wristbandsmake rubber braceletsrubber message braceletsupcycle silicone bracelets
[Photo/IC] Health authorities target birth defects, say domestic drugs would cost less Health authorities will step up efforts to reduce the incidence of rare diseases and improve diagnosis and treatment, a senior health official said ahead of Rare Disease Day, which falls on the last day of February. We will try to further reduce inherited birth defects that lead to rare diseases, Jiao Yahui, deputy chief of medical administration and supervision at the National Health Commission, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Meanwhile, we will intensify the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases by enhancing the role played by internet technology. The commission has established a national computerized system to register diagnosis and treatment information on rare diseases, and big data technology is being used to promote research on the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases in China, she said. There is no official figure on the number of people with rare diseases in the country. Although incidence is low by definition, the absolute number of such people in China is large, considering the size of the total population, Jiao said. Worldwide, there are different definitions for rare diseases. In the United States, diseases with an incidence of less than two in 10,000 are regarded as rare, Jiao said. Zhang Shuyang, vice-president of the China Alliance of Rare Diseases and vice-president of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, estimates the total number of such people in China exceeds 20 million. There are nearly 7,000 identified rare diseases worldwide, she said, but while the rate of having one is low, there may still be many patients. Jiao said the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases is a thorny issue worldwide, and effective means of diagnosis and drugs are lacking for many of them, partly due to the smaller patient pool, which discourages pharmaceutical companies from researching and developing drugs to treat them. Last year, China released for the first time a list of 121 rare diseases, including albinism and young-onset Parkinson's disease. The list will be expanded as diagnoses improve, she said. To improve diagnosis and treatment of such patients, the commission has established a hospital network comprising more than 300 top-tier recommended hospitals across the country, Jiao said. Many rare diseases are also inherited, she said. We will continue to improve pre-pregnancy and pre-birth checkups, as well as disease screening for pregnant women, to reduce the occurrence of rare diseases in newborns. Zhang said intensifying research and development is crucial for diagnosis and treatment of such diseases. Worldwide, effective drugs are available for only 5 percent of all the rare diseases, she said. In China, most of the related drugs are imported and are very expensive. The recent decision by the central government to reduce value-added taxes for 21 drugs targeting rare diseases could make them more affordable, but only domestic production will effectively reduce the prices, she said, adding that more efforts should be made to encourage domestic pharmaceutical companies to develop them.
