Health authorities will vaccinate children in parts of the northwest Gansu Province in a drive to prevent post-quake epidemics, local authorities said on Tuesday.

From June 5 to 19, children aged between eight months and 14 years in several quake-ravaged counties in Longnan City and the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gannan will be vaccinated against encephalitis, hepatitis and measles, said a spokesman of the Longnan health bureau.

Separately, the Central Committee of the Jiu San (September 3) Society, one of the eight leading non-Communist parties in China, donated 30,000 books on disease prevention to the quake-hit areas in Gansu on Tuesday.

Longnan and Gannan are close to Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, the epicenter of the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12 that has left more than 69,000 people dead.

In Gansu, the second worst-hit province after Sichuan, an area of113,500 square kilometers was affected by the devastating quake, almost a quarter of the province's territory.

The quake left 365 people dead in the province, 10,157 people injured and more than 1.28 million households comprising 5.24 million people affected.

The disaster also destroyed 1.32 million houses and forced the evacuation of almost 1.8 million people.

The transport and communications infrastructure was severely affected, and secondary disasters occurred frequently.

In addition, the worst-hit areas in Gansu were mostly poor rural areas with rugged conditions, which greatly hampered relief efforts.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2008)