bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

The wife of a Chinese official has been jailed for taking bribes from vaccine manufacturers, a court said on Thursday, in a case with echoes of a major scandal that rocked China earlier this year.
The 60-year-old woman, surnamed Guo, received a three-year sentence for soliciting 1.5 million yuan (HK$1.68 million) in bribes from five Chinese vaccine companies, according to a ruling from the Number One Beijing Intermediate People’s Court.
Will China’s scientists’ breakthrough sound death knell for world’s deadly viruses?
She is the wife of a former employee of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration, who the court documents said was complicit in the scheme.
Guo was taken into custody in April 2015 and charged with accepting bribes in relation to four biotech firms’ efforts to obtain government permits for a variety of vaccines, including those for severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and avian flu. A fifth firm also paid her bribes.
Deadly vaccines: 570 million yuan of medication ‘illegally sold in China poses risk to users’ lives’: authorities
The sentence follows the March revelation of a massive vaccine scandal that enraged the Chinese public. The case involved the improper storage, transport and sale of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of vaccines – many of them expired.
No one was believed to have been harmed, but the story still provoked outrage in a country where families, who were long limited to one child by government policy, fiercely protect their offspring.
Public fury erupted in March after a report revealed that information about the case had been suppressed by authorities who had arrested two key suspects nearly a year earlier.
Vaccine scandal: hundreds involved across 24 provinces in China
From 2010, the pair, a mother and daughter from Shandong province in eastern China, sold 25 different kinds of expired or improperly stored vaccines worth more than 570 million yuan, the official Xinhua news agency reported at the time.
They included shots for polio, rabies, hepatitis B and flu for both children and adults, Caijing magazine said, citing drug safety officials.


Chinese official’s wife jailed for taking 1.5 million yuan of bribes in new vaccine scandal

The woman’s sentence follows the March revelation of a massive vaccine scandal that enraged the Chinese public. The case involved the improper storage, transport and sale of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of vaccines – many of them expired. Photo: SCMP Pictures

News

China

Politics