Prague, June 15 (CTK) – The Czech Republic and China signed several cooperation agreements and memoranda Monday, on the occasion of a visit by Chinese Deputy Vice Premier Liu Yandong to Prague.
The State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) and the State Health Institute (SZU) signed an extended memorandum on cooperation with Chinese health care institutions, Health Ministry spokeswoman Stepanka Cechova said.
The agreement between the state-run aviation company Cesky Aeroholding and the biggest Chinese private air carrier Hainan Airlines will set up a direct air connection between Prague and Beijing.
On the basis of other agreements, full-length animated film Panda and Little Mole will be created in Czech-Chinese coproduction, another Chinese children suffering from respiratory troubles will be treated in the Karlova Studanka mountain spa, north Moravia, and the Czech Republic and China will mutually recognise university diplomas, exchange students and cooperate in health care.
The SUKL is developing cooperation with drugs agencies in the Tianjin province and Shanghai. The institutions will primarily exchange information on the quality and safety of medicines.
Further targets are mutual support of control mechanisms, exchange of information on the application of new technologies and testing of the quality of medicines and health care tools, Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek (senior government Social Democrats, CSSD) said, commenting on the agreement.
The SUKL will offer expert seminars to China and participate in information exchange on medical products and related legal regulations.
“The Czech Republic can, for instance, obtain information about undesirable effects of medicines,” SUKL director Zdenek Blahuta said.
The SZUe has signed an agreement with the Chinese centre for control and prevention of diseases, on the basis of which it will focus on monitoring, control and prevention of contagious and not contagious diseases, cooperate in the introduction and development of the national laboratory public health system to supervise infectious diseases a well as working conditions and the environment and their effect on health.
Czech and Chinese politicians Monday discussed cooperation in health care. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) met Liu Yandong and they signed a memorandum. Then they and Nemecek visited the Prague-Motol Teaching Hospital.
The programme of the Chinese delegation continues on Tuesday when the Czech-Chinese summit on health care is held in Prague to be attended by representatives of 16 Central and East European countries and China.
The first Czech clinic of traditional Chinese medicine will be opened at the Teaching Hospital in Hradec Kralove, east Bohemia, on Wednesday.
Nemecek signed the agreement on cooperation in medical and spa tourism during President Milos Zeman’s visit to China last October, along with the memorandum on strategic cooperation of both countries’ health systems and the agreement on Chinese support for the project of a traditional Chinese medicine clinic in the Czech Republic.
