China warns of holes in anti-hepatitis fight

BEIJING (Reuters) - Too many people in China are still not being inoculated against hepatitis B and the disease is having a devastating economic impact, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

Though a vaccination campaign among new-born babies had brought infection rates down for children under five, there was an "urgent need" to expand that to the rest of the population, the ministry's official Health News said.

"The hepatitis B rate nationally remains high and is not going down, which has brought with it enormous burdens," the newspaper said, citing a government meeting earlier in the week.

"Hepatitis B vaccinations urgently need to be expanded to people apart from babies."

China had almost 1 million cases of the disease, which cost the country an annual average of 915 billion yuan ($125.8 billion), the report said.

China not only has a big problem fighting the disease, but with discrimination against carriers.

By law, employers are not allowed to decline job applications or fire employees on the grounds that they are infected unless their job might help spread the virus, though in reality this is often ignored.

Many Chinese employers, including government offices across the country, have made a negative hepatitis B test compulsory in recruiting new staff.

There have also been reports of schools expelling students found to be carrying the virus. Symptoms include inflammation of the liver and jaundice and the disease can be spread by contact with blood of, or unprotected sex with, an infected person.

($1=7.271 Yuan)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)