Starting next month, Guangzhou will fully begin the free marriage medical examination service, paid by municipal and district financial revenues. This has been learned from the 2006 Guangzhou Population and Family Planning Meeting held on the afternoon of February 8th, 2007.

Vice Mayor Wang Xiaoling disclosed at the meeting that in order to improve the birth population quality, Guangzhou would introduce the marriage medical examination service. The Population and Family Planning Bureau, Finance Bureau, Health Bureau, Civil Affairs Bureau and Women's Association would cooperatively work out the implementation plan as soon as possible and strive to implement of the free service in March.

The newly-married couples can get a free marriage medical examination from three months prior to their marriage until one month after, if one or two sides of the couple have registered their permanent residence in Guangzhou. According to sources from the Guangzhou Population and Family Planning Bureau, different from former marriage medical examinations, the free service also adds such examination items with Guangdong characteristics as "mediterranean anemia" and "horsebean disease", and the HIV test is also compulsory.

Mayor Zhang Guangning said firstly the marriage medical examination should be checked carefully so as to enhance the birth-defects intervention capability, ensuring the examination quality, adding the examination items of recurrent and multiple inheritable diseases and providing the newly-married couples with eugenic suggestions and reference. Secondly, the genetic examination should be conducted carefully during the pregnancy and delivery period, encouraging the pregnant and delivering women to conduct genetic examinations. The medical institutions should pay attention to the reproductive health of women of child-bearing age, perfect their reproductive health archives, establish regular follow-ups and service systems and improve the technical service level.

Director Luo Yanhong of Physical Examination Center of the Guangdong Women and Children's Hospital said that there was an abrupt decrease in marriage medical examination population since the introduction of volunteer marriage medical examination mechanism on October 1st, 2003, while there was an obvious increase in the number of infectious diseases and diseases influencing pregnancy during the gestation period.

Mayor Zhang Guangning said that according to a sample survey, the new birth defect rate in Guangzhou has currently reached 17.2 percent, with an obvious increasing tendency.

(Translated by Guangzhou Association of Foreign Affairs Translators)

Editor: Wing