The Chinese government will invest more than 30 million yuan (US$3.61 million) to build an altitude diseases research institute in the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region.
Construction of the project, to be built on the basis of the former Tibet's Mountain Disease and Coronary Heart Diseases Research Institute (MDCHDRI), is expected to be started very soon, MDCHDRI sources said.
Altitude diseases are caused by hypoxia environment in regions with an elevation of more than 3,000 meters. Such diseases have the symptoms of headache, being dizzy, heart-throb, short breath, hypodynamia and vomiting.
Professor Cen Weijun with the MDCHDRI said that Tibet, with an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters, becomes a region with the highest incidence of altitude diseases and the greatest number of such patients in the world.
The MDCHDRI, established in 1985, has treated more than 3,000 altitude disease patients. At the same time, the institute has also conducted a series of clinical researches, research on the functions of the organs and humoral factors.
The institute has made a breakthrough in treating acute altitude diseases, with the incidence of the disease dropping from the former 4 percent to the current four per thousand.
(people's daily 09/18/2001)
