STORY: All residents in China's Xinjiang entitled to free annual health checks: expert
SHOOTING DATE: Jan. 22, 2024
DATELINE: Jan. 24, 2024
LENGTH: 00:01:08
LOCATION: GENEVA, Switzerland
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Xinjiang
2. SOUNDBITE (English): ZHAO WEILI, Chinese Medical Association
3. various of Xinjiang

STORYLINE:
   
All residents in China's Xinjiang are entitled to free annual health checks since 2016, said a Chinese expert at an event held in Geneva.

SOUNDBITE (English): ZHAO WEILI, Chinese Medical Association
"Since 2020, the policy of free health examination of all has been adjusted from testing all those who should be tested, to testing all those who want to be tested, fully respecting the personal willingness and actual situation of residents. For Xinjiang, an economically underdeveloped region with a total population of more than 20 million, it's not an easy task financially for the government to provide people there with free health examinations that cover the whole life cycle. Its initial intention is to benefit the people's medical treatment."

Government funding in the medical and health sector reached nearly 157.8 bln yuan (about 24.5 bln U.S. dollars) in China's Xinjiang during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), said local health authorities.

Tuberculosis has long plagued rural residents in southern Xinjiang.

From 2016 to 2020, the reported incidence of tuberculosis in the area dropped by 64 percent through measures such as free health check-ups and free hospitalization and isolation.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Geneva, Switzerland.
(XHTV)