China to phase out mercury-based medical equipment

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-09-15

A mercury thermometer. (Photo/Xinhua)

In line with the WTO's Green Medical Care program, China is slated to phase out mercury-based thermometers and blood-pressure monitors by 2020, creating substantial demand for electronic versions of such products.

The replacement of mercury-based thermometers, numbering some 50 million devices in China now, is the first step in the nation's medical greening. Hospitals alone account for 35 million of the devices.

The program was launched by the WTO and international coalition Health Care Without Harm jointly in July 2008, aiming to substitute electronic devices for at least 70% of existing mercury-based thermometers and blood-pressure monitors by 2017. In January this year, China became a signatory to the Anti-Mercury UN Minimata Convention, pledging to ban production and sales of mercury-based thermometers and blood-pressure monitors entirely by 2020.

Jishuitan Hospital in Beijing pioneered the movement in 2008, when it replaced mercury-based thermometers with electronic ones entirely. The upgrade cost 1.2 million (US$196,000). Growing numbers of other hospitals, mainly in first- and second-tier cities, have joined the movement.

According to the Anti-Mercury UN Minimata Convention, China has pledged to replace some 7 million mercury-based thermometers at Chinese hospitals by 2017; up to now, only 300,000 have been replaced. Based on 100 yuan for an electronic thermometer, the move will create 700 million yuan (US$114.39 million) in business opportunities. The market scale will top 3.5 billion yuan (US$572 million) by 2020, if China fulfills its commitment to reaplce the 35 million mercury-based thermometers in its hospitals. The figure nears 10 billion yuan (US$1.63 billion) after taking blood-pressure monitors into account.

Competition will be acute and is expected to drive down electronic device prices by 50%, according to a manager of Omron Healthcare China.