China was saturated with disabling infectious diseases near the end of 1940s. Tuberculosis, plague, cholera, polio, malaria, smallpox, and hookworm were killing a lot of people in the country. More than 11 million people were infected with the water-borne liver parasite diseases. Cholera epidemics raged through the population freely, some years killing tens of thousands. Infant mortality was as high as 300 per 1000 live births.
The country was going through a political and social transition, and thus creating a national public health system and eradicating entrenched diseases was an obvious first step in improving the lives of its people.
The Chinese Communist government began initiating massive vaccination campaigns against the plague and smallpox, vaccinating nearly 300 million people. Sanitation infrastructures for clean drinking water and waste disposal were implemented throughout the country.
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