Vaccine scandal has parents scrambling
Anxious Chinese parents are seeking help from overseas hospitals so they can continue to immunize their children on schedule in the wake of a fake vaccine scandal that has shocked the nation.
“My child has received three doses of substandard DPT vaccines. Next time, I will definitely choose imported vaccines,” a resident surnamed Xu from Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, told the Global Times.
More than 400,000 substandard DPT vaccines that target diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus produced by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Product Company were sold to Chongqing and Hebei in 2017.
“I first thought that domestic vaccines are more reliable because they are provided for free. But I was too naïve,” noted Xu.
A mother surnamed Zhang from Beijing told the Global Times that she decided to turn to private hospitals as they provide more imported vaccines. However, “I was told many of their vaccines are also made domestically,” said Zhang.
The scandal has triggered some parents to look abroad to access vaccines. A father surnamed Ma from East China’s Fujian Province is one of them.
“I called clinics in Hong Kong. Their public clinics have a quota of just 120 doses for nonHong Kong residents. I may go to the Singapore,” he told the Global Times on Friday.
On Chinese social media platforms, many netizens are sharing their “strategies” on how to receive vaccines from Japan, claiming that safety measures in Japan are said to be the highest in the world.
Analysts are warning Chinese parents to be cautious in choosing imported vaccines as there is no guarantee they are absolutely safe.
In December 2017, eight batches of US-based Sanofi Pasteur’s pentavalent vaccine, which protects against five diseases, were rejected by Chinese authorities who found the shot’s tetanus component was ineffective.
Meanwhile, several employees from a private hospital in Shanghai have been sentenced to prison from four to seven years for selling imported vaccines without government approval, Southern Weekly reported.