Fake vaccine shots kill all of Chinese farmer’s 8,000 ducks
Villager fined for using suspect treatment on his birds in eastern Shandong province
A farmer in eastern China has paid the price for using cheap but suspect vaccines on his ducks after all 8,000 of them died, according to a newspaper report.
The villager from the city of Tai’an in Shandong province suffered about 40,000 yuan (HK$45,000) in losses after he had a duck farmer inject fake “three no” vaccines, meaning no production date, no manufacturer name and no product ingredients tags, into the birds, according to the Qilu Evening News.
Ma Shuqiang said he asked a duck farmer from the same village to inject the vaccines into his 8,000 ducks on October 25. The vaccines were to protect the birds from the duck hepatitis virus, he said.
About 2,600 ducks died just two hours after the injections, the report said.
Ma then found more of his ducks dying for the next few days, with the bodies of the birds “spread out on the floor of the duck shed”, according to the report.
By the 11th day after the injections, all of his ducks had died, Ma said.
Staff from local animal husbandry bureau fined the farmer 3,000 yuan for using fake vaccines, but said they could not trace the source of the suspect treatment as the production base was in another city and “beyond the scope of their administrative responsibility”, the report said.
