Medical instrument giveaway to primarily benefit grassroots clinics - ministry
Shanghai. July 22. INTERFAX-CHINA - China will distribute 10,000 free sets of medical instruments to medical institutions nationwide as part of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) announced on its Web site July 21.
According to the announcement, 1,000 medical institutions from 100 counties in 10 provinces and municipalities will receive the instruments, which will come from domestic manufacturers.
Benefiting from the giveaway will be the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Qinghai, Liaoning and Sichuan, as well as Chongqing Municipality and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The drive aims to improve access to state-of-the-art medical instruments, especially among grassroots medical institutions, and to encourage domestic manufacturers to engage more with end users in developing new products, the announcement stated.
The first batch of 1,100 sets of medical instruments from 60 domestic producers worth a total of RMB 70 million ($10.33 million) is ready to be distributed, the announcement said.
China's government has taken a keen interest in the development of the medical device industry. A national medical device innovation alliance was created with support from government authorities in July 2009.
- MS