18 detained over fake rabies vaccine
New dosages offered to receivers
Police in Northeast China’s Jilin Province have detained 18 people from the medicine company involved in the recent fake vaccine scandal.
The public security bureau of Changchun New Area in Changchun, Jilin have detained 18 people from Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited, including its chairwoman, Gao Junfang, in connection with the production and sales of inferior drugs, the bureau announced Sunday on its WeChat account.
The company is suspected of violating drug production protocols in its production of the Vero-cell rabies vaccine. Investigations are ongoing, chinanews. com reported on Sunday. Changsheng has also been accused of producing ineffective vaccines for children.
As a remedial measure for children from East China’s Shandong Province, who had received substandard diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) vaccines produced by Changchun Changsheng, the province has been giving them free new dosages of the vaccines.
The parents have the option of accepting the new DPT dosages, the website of the Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.
The center also published an advice and warnings to the children involved to prevent an overdose.
“If it was me, I would not even dare receive a new dosage because I don’t know how much the substandard vaccines affected the children,” a mother surnamed Yan of a 2-month-old baby from Beijing, told the Global Times.
The Jilin provincial drug administration confiscated 186 doses of the DPT vaccine, 858,840 yuan ($126,936) in illegally acquired revenue, and slapped an additional fine of 2.6 million yuan.
The penalty was in response to media reports in November, when drug authorities in Shandong found 252,600 doses of the DPT vaccine were sold in the province.
Another 400,520, produced by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, went to Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality and North China’s Hebei Province.
Yuan Yulai, a lawyer from the Zhejiang Zhixing Law Firm and member of the All China Lawyers Association, told the Global Times that “it is common for authorities to take a long time investigating.” Citizens should be more patient and trust the authorities, as China’s law is clear on such cases.
“The problem lies in law enforcement, as some departments don’t act according to the law,” he said, adding that the authorities should enhance citizen confidence in government and domestically made vaccines.