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NEWS RELEASE FROM:

UNITED CHINA RELIEF
1790 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y.
352:MM
(IF YOU REQUIRE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CALL THE NEWS DESK AT CIRCLE 5-4100) 

FOR RELEASE SUNDAY, MARCH 15.

CHINESE HEALTH ADMINISTRATOR CALLS DRUG SHORTAGE ACUTE

Asks United States To Send Sulfa Drugs and Other Basic Medicines by Freight Planes
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NEW YORK, NY. - Dr. P. Z. King, American-trained director of the National administration, in a special appeal to United China Relief by short wave radio, declares that the fall of Hongkong and Rangoon already have caused an acute shortage of basic drugs, particularly the sulfa group, and asks the United States to send these and other medical supplies by freight planes via India.

China's health services have been greatly expanded since the outbreak of the war and there has been steady progress in domestic production of medical supplies, but China lacks raw materials and production facilities.

"Government-sponsored work shops are turning out a certain quantity of primitive surgical instruments, and crude dressing materials are being manufactured in different parts of the country,"Dr. King said. "A fairly large volume of alcohol and anesthetics, like ether and chloroform, and of different kinds of vaccine and serum is being produced and it is hoped that experimental work on the substitution of domestic medicine for at least some foreign drugs will be successful. But the combined results of all these efforts are bound to be insufficient since Free China does not possess highly developed mechanical and chemical industries nor many of the necessary raw materials.   

"Since the fall of Hongkong and Rangoon, an acute shortage in certain vital items has already set in. To mention only two, China has at present very little of the drugs in the Sulfanilamide family, the universal cure-all for streptococcic infections and no more than a pathetically small quantity of X-ray films.
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