Antibiotic use in hospitals tumbles(2)

Media reports have suggested that antibiotics overuse results in about 80,000 deaths in China a year, and could cost 80 billion yuan ($12.8 billion) to treat.

However, officials from the Ministry of Health said no reliable research can prove the numbers.

Elsewhere in the report, figures showed that antibiotics still account for a smaller proportion of drug misuse in China, compared with drugs acting on the nervous system, which increased by 1.6 percentage points in use and drugs for treating tumors, which rose 1.3 percentage points.

Statistics from several city and provincial health bureaus revealed that tumors have now became the top life-threatening disease in China.

In Beijing, one in four deaths was the result of a tumor in 2010, and incidence of breast cancer in Beijing jumped by 130 percent from 2000 to 2009.

Zhi Xiuyi, director of Capital Medical University's Department of Oncology, said that a combination of pollution, stress and modern lifestyles were contributing to the rises.

Apart from drug use, the report also listed the top 10 pharmaceutical companies now operating in China, in terms of market penetration of top-level hospitals.

The global giant AstraZeneca topped the list, half of which consisted of foreign companies.