China donates medical equipment to Uganda

30 June 2009
Source: Xinhua General News Service (China)

KAMPALA -- The Chinese government on Tuesday donated medical equipment worth 300,000 U. S. dollars to Uganda boost the East African country's effort to promote reproductive health.

"I hope it will play a positive role," said Wang Zeshan, charge d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy while handing over the equipment to Uganda's Health Minister Stephen Malinga.

Malinga said though maternal and infant mortality and morbidity is on a declining trend, it is still unacceptably high.

According to Ministry of Health statistics, the country's maternal mortality rate decreased from 505 per 100,000 births in 2001 to 435 per 100,000 in 2006 and infant mortality from 156 per 1,000 in 2001 to 136 in 2006.

Malinga said reproductive health is one of the priority areas that need intervention.

This donation of diagnostic, imaging and laboratory equipment will help improve the delivery of services to the people of Uganda, he said.

China has given several donations to Uganda including a 100-bed general hospital whose construction is scheduled to start in August.