Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said that a low pre-marital health check-up rate will result in high occurrences of defects in newborn babies.

Ever since the new regulations on marriage registration were introduced on October 1, 2003, which stipulates that pre-marital physical check-ups are no longer compulsory, the rate of pre-marital physical check-ups has plummeted nationwide.

"Instead of restoring the practice of compulsory check-ups completely, we are trying to encourage most Chinese to carry out the check-ups, especially people in regions with high occurrences of AIDS," Zhang said during an on-line interview with www.gov.cn.

Chinese experts said the check-ups serve as the"first line of defense" against infectious diseases including hepatitis B, venereal diseases and AIDS, curbing diseases from the sources and ensuring the quality of newborns.

So far, local governments in the provinces and municipalities including Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei and Shanghai have made pre-marital check-ups free by incorporating it into their government-backed public health service system.

According to latest figures from the Ministry of Health, the Chinese mainland had reported 132,545 cases of HIV, with 31,143 AIDS patients by the end of August 2005. A total of 7,643 of them had died from the disease. Enditem

Editor:

Lin