Tibet offers free treatment to patients with parasitic tapeworm disease

LHASA -- Tibet autonomous region has this year conducted around 1,300 surgeries for people with hydatid disease (Echinococcosis), a fatal parasitic tapeworm disease affecting China's herding communities.

The local government also provided medication worth more than 5.8 million yuan (around $900,000) to infected residents at no charge, according to the regional health and family planning commission Friday.

Tsotri Sangmo, a herdsman from Bachen county of Nagqu prefecture, was found to be infected with the disease, and received a nine-hour surgery in the No. 2 People's Hospital of Tibet.

"I didn't spend a penny on the screening or on the treatment," he said.

Jiang Zonghua, a doctor with the hospital, said dozens of medical workers from across the country went to Tibet to train local doctors on the disease's control and treatment.

The commission revealed earlier this week that Tibet had screened 3 million people in 74 counties and districts and found around 30,000 cases of the parasitic disease, caused by the larval stage of the dog tapeworm, which leads to death if not treated.

The disease mainly affects herding areas in China's Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Sichuan, Tibet and Xinjiang.

To fight hydatid disease, Tibet has set up 34 receiving stations and housed more than 85,000 stray dogs. By December, 90 percent of lambs in the region had been vaccinated against the disease and 90 percent of dogs offered anti-tapeworm medication, the commission said.