Hong Kong medical centres under fire after selling HPV cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil 9 when they couldn’t get it
Clinics accused of improper behaviour after guaranteeing the necessary three shots and then failing to deliver
Hong Kong medical centres are facing accusations of irresponsible trade practices after they sold doses of the latest cervical cancer vaccine with no guarantee they could deliver the full three-shot course.
The miscalculations have left thousands of women without some of the jabs they paid for, which must be administered within a year at specific intervals.
About 800,000 doses of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination Gardasil 9 were administered in Hong Kong last year – an indication of the size of the problem. More than 90 per cent of those packages were sold to mainland Chinese visitors.
Complaints made to Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog about vaccination services have tripled since last year, to surpass 1,600.
HPV vaccination has become a lucrative business for the world’s major drug companies, who supply the jabs to Hong Kong’s private medical centres who in turn take bookings from mainland Chinese agents bringing women across the border.
