Members of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Chinese Academy of Engineering are urging the government and the public for more awareness on the prevention and treatment of hepatitis B and tuberculosis diseases which they said, have claim over 300,000 Chinese lives every year.

Doctors attending a medical forum in Zhejiang Province in east China urged the public for increased awareness and control of the infectious diseases.

Statistics estimate some 120 million Chinese are afflicted with the hepatitis B virus with 20 percent of those infected developing a full-blown version of the hepatitis B disease.

Li Lanjuan a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said, "It is hard to prevent and control hepatitis B at present. The hepatitis B vaccine shows no effect on about five percent of its receivers, and the medicine being used can not kill the virus completely."

However diseases experts say there is still hope if only the government and the public would exert efforts to prevent the spread of the disease from the current 9.7 percent of the population with hepatitis B virus, to just five percent in 2010.

China has recently stepped up the efforts to raise public awareness of the disease. The Chinese Foundation for Hepatitis Prevention and Control has invited Andy Lau, a famous Hong Kong movie star, who is also a hepatitis B virus carrier, to be the publicity ambassador for the prevention and control of the disease.