AN ESTIMATED 30,000 Chinese children a year could lose hearing ability because of misuse of drugs, and as many as 100,000 aged between 5 and 14 could succumb to curable and preventable diseases owing to the lack of child-specific medicines and proper treatment, according to information from the China center for the rehabilitation of deaf children. Beijing Times commented on Monday:

The misuse of medicines for children has long been a sore point in many countries, because their reactions can be a lot more serious than those in adults. Unlike adult-specific drugs, the medicines made exclusively for children have a limited market share and, hence, pharmaceutical companies feel less motivated to make them. That is why the United States administration provides favorable policies for pharmaceutical companies, such as the six-month exclusivity policy to ensure they add specific instructions on child dosage to their products.

Such an approach may be better than simply offering subsidies, but governments should do more than that to better protect children. For one, pharmaceutical companies should share clinical data on the reactions child-specific medicines can induce.

Most of the pediatric hospitals in China are public hospitals and they are supposed to provide clinical data to relevant departments in the health sector. Giving such information to drug-makers may not only significantly reduce their research costs, but also help to build a data base for further studies on other diseases.

In most cases, without specific instructions on the use of children's medicines, many parents break a pill meant for adults in two and give their children one half, because doctors are unable to say how much "half the dosage" should be. This could easily cause a reaction and other side effects.

As China is doubling its efforts to encourage the research on and production of child-specific drugs, the full implementation of relevant policies is very important. And those departments that fail to set a timetable for monitoring the promotion of child-specific medicines should be held accountable.