More than 60,000 children living in the impoverished county of Yuxian, north China's Hebei Province, were given one free year of health insurance for critical illnesses and injuries.

The China Children Insurance Foundation (CCIF), donated the insurance, which covers all the children in the county between the ages of 3 and 15 on Thursday.

"We just completed distribution of insurance for more than 60,000 students affected by last year's May 12 earthquake hit areas in Sichuan Gansu and Shaanxi on Wednesday," said Hu Haidi, CCIF director. "But today is the first time we were able to provide the charity insurance to all qualified children in one county."

According to Hu, only healthy children get the insurance that takes effect on June 1. It only applies to four health issues: leukemia, severe renal failure (uremia), severe burns and permanent loss of eyesight. Each child is covered for 100,000 yuan(about 15,000 US dollars).

The CCIF was set up in April by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund, the country's first philanthropy foundation, in response to a public call for health care reform after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao helped a 2-year-old leukemia patient in February.

Li Rui, from Yuxian, was denied life-saving treatment because his parents couldn't pay for it. He was later admitted to Beijing Children's Hospital under Wen's instruction.

"We are grateful to the CCIF's help. It is particularly meaningful as the insurance covers not only local children, but also those of migrant workers," said Wang Zhijun, Party chief of Yuxian County. He added that Li Rui was now being treated in Beijing and was in stable condition.

"The insurance mechanism acts before the disaster comes rather than responding passively afterwards. It helps to avoid situations like Li's from happening again," he said.

The CCIF plans to extend insurance coverage to all 600,000 children in Zhangjiakou City, which overseas Yuxian County, this summer.

In addition, about 570,000 orphans across China, who have registered with Civil Affairs authorities, are expected to become the next group of beneficiaries from the project, said Hu.

To make that happen, the director is calling for more donations. Information on how to do that is at: http://baoxian.cctf.org.cn.

There are about 360 million children in China. Less than half are included in the commercial or social basic medical insurance system.

Even those that are covered can not afford expensive treatments for a disease like leukemia, said Hu.

"The one-year insurance premium for one child is as low as 20yuan (3 US dollars)," she said. "Before you could never offer meaningful help to a child with leukemia with a three U.S. dollar donation. Now with CCIF's insurance mechanism you can and we hope more people will join us to help the children," she said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2009)