As new vaccine scandal grips China, parents say they’ve lost faith in the system
Chinese drug maker found supplying substandard vaccines that were given to babies as young as three months old
Parents say they have lost faith in the system after a major drug maker was found to be supplying inferior vaccines that were given to babies as young as three months old, in the latest public health crisis to grip China.
The Jilin Food and Drug Administration revealed the vaccine safety scandal on its website on Friday.
After an investigation, Jilin-based Changchun Changsheng Bio-technology was found to have sold some 252,600 substandard DPT vaccines to the Shandong Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency in charge of public health in a province of about 100 million people.
It was not yet known how many children had been given the inferior vaccines against three infectious diseases – diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus – through the state-sponsored disease control system.
Changsheng Bio-tech – which means “long life” in Chinese – is the latest company in the scandal-plagued pharmaceutical industry to be found producing vaccines that are not up to standard.
In November, the state drug watchdog revealed that another big vaccine maker, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, had sold 400,520 inferior DPT vaccines to Chongqing and Hebei. It is still unclear how many children had been given these vaccines, and the company has yet to be punished.
The DPT vaccines in both cases were bought by provincial public health authorities to be given to children under a compulsory health programme. They were found to be ineffective, but it is not known whether they could cause harm. There have been no reports of any children falling ill after being given the vaccines.