China has stockpiles of medicine for the Olympics that are three times the estimated amount needed, including treatments for epidemic diseases, biochemical terrorist attacks and other emergencies.

"We have the ability and confidence to ensure drug supplies and safety for foreign athletes, tourists and Chinese people," Yan Jiangying, spokesman with the State Food and Drug Administration, said on Monday.

The stockpiles are said to be worth of tens of millions of yuan.

Yan said drugs and medical devices for the Games, including 128 types of commonly used drugs and many first-aid treatments, had been in hand in Beijing since the end of July.

The 128 drugs were on a list provided by the International Olympic Committee, reflecting experience from previous Games. Among them, 80 percent were domestically made and the rest were imported.

Chen Jisheng, president of Beijing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the sole drug distributor for the Games, said the company would work around the clock to supervise supplies of safe drugs.

Xu Shuqiang, president of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, vowed the hospital would maintain patient privacy and would only reveal athletes' conditions if their families, coaches and countries agreed.

The hospital, among 24 appointed facilities for the Games, is the nearest to the Olympic core area and will treat Olympic registered personnel.

In addition, 15 special vehicles, equipped with 50 million yuan (about 7.25 million U.S. dollars) worth of drug-testing devices, will be put into use during the Olympics across the city for emergency tests of the safety and quality of medicines.

The vehicles, developed by the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products in 2004, have a database of about 180,000 types of medicines.

(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2008)