A project aimed at improving the health of new mothers and their babies in poor rural regions has served hundreds of thousands of women since it was launched three years ago.

The "Healthy Mother Express" project, sponsored by the All-China Women's Federation and National Working Committee on Women and Children, offered training programs to 255,000 people in 11 provincial regions such as Shaanxi, Guizhou and Tibet.

More than 840,000 people have received health checkups and 76,800 pregnant women and patients have received medical assistance from the project.

The mobile project, which travel the regions in 349 vans, has distributed medicines worth more than 4 million yuan (US$500,000) and more than 4.8 million leaflets on health care have been distributed free.

(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2006)