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This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing. Here is the news.
A new study shows that the overall suicide rate has dropped dramatically in China, which had one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
The study from the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong says that the national suicide rate now is less than 10 per 100,000 people, nearly 60 percent lower than that in the 1990s.
The study attributes the significant decline to China's fast economic growth and urbanization in the past decade. More education and employment opportunities have been created for everyone, especially women in rural areas.
Controls on the sale of pesticides, which many rural women used to commit suicide, and the improvement in healthcare services have also contributed to the decline in the suicide rate.
Suicide is a major public health issue across the world. It is the cause of 800,000 premature deaths globally.
In the 1990s, China had one of the world's highest suicide rates - 23 per 100,000 people. An estimated 250,000 suicides were reported every year in the 1990s, accounting for about a quarter of all suicides in the world. In fact, suicide was the fifth leading cause of deaths in China.
More women than men committed suicides in China during the period, which was drastically different from the around 3 to 1 male to female suicide ratio in Western countries. The suicide rate in China was
substantially higher in rural areas than in cities, with older adults more prone to committing suicide.
However, the study says that the declining rate could reverse in the next decade because of social stress associated with the slowdown in economic growth, increased economic burden of an aging society, and social instability.
Experts are calling for the government and people to prepare in advance to meet the challenges; and the government has to take measures to ensure that economic development benefits all the people, rather than a selected few.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
China's national vaccine supervision system has met or passed all the standard requirements of the World Health Organization.
The WHO stipulates only countries with an approved national vaccine regulatory system can receive WHO accreditation and have their vaccines added to the WHO international vaccine purchase list.
Countries which make it through an initial assessment undergo a second inspection after three years. China passed the initial WHO evaluation in March 2011, and passed the second in October last year.
The WHO says that China has a mature vaccine regulatory system with supervision reinforced continuously.
China says it will fulfill its duty as a WHO member in disease prevention and control.
You are listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Yun Feng in Beijing.
Australia has the highest proportion of recreational drug users in the world.
The United Nation's 2014 World Drug Report has confirmed Australia as leading the world in the use of party drug ecstasy, third in "ice" and fourth in cocaine.
With codeine and morphine use, Australia ranks second only to the United States with over 3 percent of people aged between 15 and 65 considered regular users, mostly women.
More than 10 percent of the working-age population use marijuana regularly
Except for ecstasy, the use of other recreational drugs in Australia is increasing.
There is a wide range of drug analogues and new psychoactive substances currently available in the Australian illicit drug market.
Medical authorities say that Australia's rise in illicit drug use was due to economic and social conditions. On one hand, people have more money to spend and on the other there are more people who are at risk; and those that are at risk are getting worse because of unemployment, poor job prospects, and lack of optimism.
The concern for medical authorities is the increase in overdoses with more than three people dying each day from a drug overdose.
Young people have easy access to drugs and police are not as vigilant as they were 10 years ago.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
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