China Briefing | Why China’s vaccine scandal is unlikely to be its last

The pledges of action from on high are all too familiar. If officials persist in paying more attention to censoring social media rather than reflecting on the root of the problem, another such disaster is just a matter of time

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Food and Drug Administration officials check vaccines for rabies at the Disease Control and Prevention Centre in Huaibei in China’s eastern Anhui province. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:15am, 28 Jul 2018Updated: 5:21pm, 28 Jul 2018

Alas! Another year, another food and drug crisis. When will this end?

The latest scandal to engulf China has raised serious concerns over the health of hundreds of thousands of toddlers who might have been injected with faulty vaccines, prompting a nationwide uproar from parents and attracting international headlines.

On the direct orders of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, a bevy of central government authorities including the food and drug, public security, and anti-graft agencies descended on Changchun, the capital city of the northeastern Jilin province, where the culprit drug producer is based.

The Shenzhen-listed Changchun Changsheng Bio-technology was found to have sold some 252,600 substandard DPT vaccines to Shandong province.

It remains unclear how many children have been given the inferior shots against the three diseases – diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus – or whether any child has come to harm.

A baby receives a vaccination at the Centre For Disease Control And Prevention in Yongnian district, Handan city, China's Hebei province. Photo: Imaginechina

But this matters no more. While official media features blanket coverage of Xi’s visit to Africa, parents’ irate comments have filled up Chinese social media platforms including WeChat, venting anger and expressing a lack of faith in the government’s food and drug administration.