BEIJING - China faces a problem with a lack of blood donors in some areas, improper health screening and absence of local government concern, a deputy health minister was quoted as saying on Monday.

China has promoted voluntary blood donations for decades and while they fulfil 95 percent of needs, the system had developed unevenly, Deputy Health Minister Gao Qiang said, in a speech carried on the ministry's Web site (www.moh.gov.cn).

"Compared with the health needs of the people, there are still many problems and insufficiencies in our national blood donation work," he said in a speech dated June 14.

"In some areas ... safety worries have still not been totally expunged," said Gao, who at the time was health minister. He was replaced last month, but is still the ministry's Communist Party secretary and so technically outranks the actual minister.

The government has tried to clean up the sector after hundreds of thousands of farmers in Henan were infected in the 1990s through schemes in which people sold blood to unsanitary health clinics, making the province the centre of China's AIDS epidemic.

The ministry admitted last month the illegal sale of blood remained an issue.

But Gao said other problems lurked too.

"Workers at some blood stations have a cold service attitude, which dampens blood donors' ardour and leads to a loss of donors," he said.

"Other blood stations do not emphasize the pool of blood donors, relying only on soldiers and high school students. And in some areas there is a clinical supply shortage, even creating a 'blood famine'," Gao added.

"Some places do not pay enough attention to publicity, or do not invest enough or coordinate properly," he said. "They have not created a good environment for popular participation, meaning donor development work has been slow, leading to many problems."

Authorities have moved to clean up the country's blood collecting centres in recent years, but underground blood selling has persisted.