China attaches great importance to the building of a legal system for drug safety supervision and the State Council has promulgated 17 administrative regulations concerning drugs so far, a white paper published on Friday by the Information Office of the State Council said.

Status Quo of Drug Supervision in China touched on such topics as an overview of drug supply, quality and safety, drug safety supervision system and legal system, policies and measures concerning drug safety supervision, supervision of traditional Chinese medicine and folk medicine, and international exchanges and cooperation in drug safety.

At present, China can produce 1,500 types of drug substances, many of which lead the world in terms of output, including penicillin and vitamin C. A number of botanic and natural drugs, such as anti-infective berberine and anti-tumor colchicine have been mass-produced and widely used in China. China's antibiotic, vitamin, hormone, antipyretic and analgesic, amino acid, and alkaloid products take up considerable shares of the international pharmaceutical market. China's artemisinin products are used all over the world, significantly contributing to the international anti-malaria efforts. Today, China can produce over 1 billion doses a year of 41 types of vaccines against infection caused by 26 kinds of viruses and pathogenic bacteria. Among them, the country's annual output of vaccines for preventing common infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, poliomyelitis, measles, pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus, can serve 500 million people. Besides meeting the domestic demand, China also provides vaccines to the World Health Organization (WHO) for disease prevention in other countries. China produces more than 3,000 types of medical devices, among which high-tech diagnosis and treatment products such as the digital X-ray, magnetic resonance, ultrasonic and computed tomography apparatus hold considerable market shares.