BEIJING - Hospitals at the county level across China had diagnosed and treated patients in about 1.19 billion cases in 2018, according to a statistical report on China's medical and healthcare sector issued by the National Health Commission (NHC).

The report said that as of the end of 2018, China had 15,474 county-level hospitals. There are also 1,907 institutions for women and children's health, 2,090 disease prevention and control centers and 1,822 health supervision institutions at the same level.

More than 3 million health staff are working at these county-level health institutions, the NHC report said.

Also, the report said that China has about 622,000 village-based clinics in the country's rural areas, treating over 1.67 billion cases last year.

It said that each rural clinic was staffed with 2.32 workers on average in 2018, a slight rise from 2.3 in 2017.