Sino File | Expect life-or-death rush to Hong Kong after China vaccine scare

Hong Kong used to be a refuge for those fleeing political persecution on the mainland. Now it serves as a fallback position for panicked parents wanting to keep their babies free from tainted milk and faulty inoculations

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A child receives a vaccine at a hospital in Rongan, China. Thousands of DPT vaccines, which are used to inoculate children against pertussis, diphtheria, and tetanus were found ineffective. Photo: EPA

Published: 12:30pm, 29 Jul 2018Updated: 2:43pm, 31 Jul 2018

Hong Kong has long been a haven for mainland Chinese seeking safety. In colonial times, the island was where Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Republic of China, frequently fled, followers in tow, to escape the Qing dynasty. Communists also took shelter in Hong Kong to escape Chiang Kai-shek’s government during the civil war, as did Chinese intellectuals trying to evade Mao Zedong’s cruel political witch hunts.

And of course, it is where students retreated in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Now under Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong has become a different kind of safe haven, this time for mainland parents seeking safety for their infants. In March 2013, after several years of mainland food scandals that included milk powder tainted to deadly levels, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region restricted the sale of infant formula after panic buying by mainland parents.The city is now anticipating a similar inflow of mainland parents seeking safe inoculations for their children after two manufacturers were found to have sold large quantities of ineffective DPT (diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus) vaccines.

Hong Kong clinics have been inundated with calls from the mainland. One local medical service agency, Waikong Health, said on Tuesday it had received nearly 30,000 inquiries in two days.

A woman carries a child past powdered milk products at a supermarket in Beijing. Photo: AP