Population and Beijing

You know our feeling on China (and Beijing). Today (China Daily Website) we can find this news about population and Beijing. We'll come back to Beijing, sure!

Beijing faces aging population problemBy Beijing (Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-11-20 16:53 Comments(0) PrintMail Large Medium Small

BEIJING - Beijing will face the challenge of an aging population over the coming five years and the city has limited experience in dealing with the phenomenon, the Beijing Morning Post reported Saturday.

At the end of 2009, registered senior citizens in Beijing numbered 2.27 million, or 18.2 percent of the city's total population of permanent residents, the report said, citing the local government.

The city will have a moderately aged society when its aged population reaches 3.24 million in 2015, the report said.

Of the city's population of registered senior citizens, 1.94 million, or 85.6 percent, are below the age of 80 years, and 326,000, or 14.4 percent, are above the age of 80 years.

In the coming five years, approximately 470,000 senior citizens in Beijing will require nursing.

A survey conducted recently by the society and legal system committee of the municipal political consultative conference found that of 4,000-plus respondents, 24.5 percent intended to live in homes for the aged, a level much higher than the 4-percent level the municipal government expected.

Some 53.3 percent of respondents said they are willing to spend their twilight years at home. That figure was significantly lower than the 90 percent figure the local government had expected.

According to the survey, 99 percent of local citizens born after 1980 said they would not be able to look after their parents during their old age.

Africa again

Yesterday we could read this (at BBC News):

CENTRAL AFRICA TO IMMUNISE MILLIONS OVER POLIO OUTBREAK


Aid agencies are planning to immunise three million people in central Africa after a polio outbreak, which has killed more than 100 people.

Hundreds more have been paralysed by the disease, authorities have said.

The disease broke out in Congo-Brazzaville, but has also affected parts of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.

The government said the vast majority of deaths had occurred in the city of Pointe-Noire in Congo-Brazzaville.

Congo-Brazzaville had previously recorded its last case of indigenous polio in 2000.

The vaccination plan is being conducted by several aid agencies, including Unicef and the World Health Organization (WHO).

'Not immunised'

"The first round of a mass vaccination campaign targeting three million people will begin Friday, in response to a polio epidemic which has unusually claimed a majority of adult victims," said a joint statement.

The majority of reported cases and deaths had occurred in males aged over 15.

Polio, which damages the nervous system, causing paralysis and death if untreated, normally strikes young children.

The immunisation plan will start in Pointe-Noire, the epicentre of the outbreak, and extend to surrounding areas.

"Every man, every woman, every child will be immunised irrespective of their past immunisation status," said Dr Luis G Sambo, WHO's regional director for Africa.

"This way we can be assured that everybody is reached, including young adults, whose immunity may be low."

Congo's director general of health, Alexis Elira Dokekias, said the victims had either not been sufficiently immunised or not immunised at all.

Reports say women and girls may have developed some immunity to the disease through contact with babies that had been immunised.

In 2000 and 2001, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Gabon carried out synchronised campaigns against the polio virus.