Public hospital reforms which include banning hospitals from charging a markup on drugs have been initiated in 1,463 Chinese counties, three quarters of the total, an official said on Thursday.

The reforms are currently under way in 3,297 county-level and 764 city-level hospitals, said Fu Wei with the medical reform office under the State Council.

Drug price markups have been abolished in 3,077 public hospitals in counties and 446 in cities so far, according to Fu.

It has long been thought that the 15-percent markup on drugs sales encouraged hospitals to prescribe more medicine than is necessary in order to generate revenue, driving up medical bills.

To address this, the central authority began cracking down on price markups in public hospitals in 2012.

The medical reforms will be expanded to all county-level public hospitals by the end of August, Fu said.