Chinese police arrest 37 in illegal vaccine sales scandal

Chinese premier Li Keqiang has weighed in on a scandal involving the sale of €80 million worth of improperly stored or expired vaccines against meningitis, rabies, polio and other diseases which has caused widespread anger and fear in China.

Police in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong have detained 37 suspects implicated in the vaccine scandal, including a mother and daughter who are alleged to have illegally sold the improperly refrigerated or expired vaccines, and people from three pharmaceutical companies, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The older woman implicated in the scandal was reportedly given a suspended sentence for committing the same crime in 2009.

Food and drug safety is an key issue in China and public confidence in domestic products has been badly undermined. In 2008, six children died and 300,000 became ill from drinking milk powder laced with the industrial chemical melamine and increased vigilance has seen vaccines for hepatitis B pulled from the shelves for not meeting required standards.

This lack of confidence is one of the reasons why infant milk formula is Ireland’s biggest export to China.

"This is a matter of life and death," a Beijing doctor surnamed Wang told Radio Free Asia, "but it's not easy to identify these things; we need to know which year they were produced in."

The doctor said: “They should make an announcement about this as soon as possible. . . so we can locate these items and cut off the supply, so no more people are harmed.”

In a statement on the government website, Mr Li said the scandal had exposed many regulatory loopholes and vowed there would be no leniency for anyone involved in the spreading of fake or expired vaccines.

The drugs were sold in more than 20 provinces since 2011. China’s top court will directly oversee the investigation into the vaccines. The China Food and Drug Administration said it had identified nine vaccine wholesalers from six provinces suspected of filing fraudulent reports of buyers’ identities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) country office in China released a statement saying improperly stored or expired vaccines can become less effective, but said they pose a very small risk of causing a toxic reaction.

In Guangdong province, a four-year-old boy died after being given a vaccine, but officials denied it was connected to the investigation.