Outrage in China over thousands of defective vaccines for children



[ad_1]

Ben Westcott and Serenitie Wang, CNN

Hundreds of thousands of vaccines for Chinese children were found defective, causing widespread fury and prompting the country's president, Xi Jinping, to qualify the incident "vile and shocking."

The Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) launched an investigation into vaccine manufacturer Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology, revoking its license for human rabies vaccines and beginning a recall of all unused vaccines produced by the society. Company executives, including the president, were arrested for questioning by the Changchun police, who announced that they had begun an official criminal investigation of the company.

In Chinese, the term Changsheng is a play on words. "

Online forums have been inundated with hundreds of thousands of comments since the news broke on Sunday, with parents and consumers posting feedback on Weibo, a Chinese platform likened to Twitter.

" My home country, how can I trust you? You just let me down again and again, "said a user. "Our confidence has been uncovered again and again, it's so irresponsible for everyone's life," says another.

Many defective vaccines were already on the market and given to Chinese children as part of the mandatory national immunization program. A number of these have now been recalled, but there is no information at this stage on how they might affect the health of children already injected.

A mother, nicknamed Zhen from Baoding, Hebei Province, told CNN that she had discovered since the announcement that her six-year-old daughter was vaccinated with a Changsheng product.

"I'm a bit lost, I have to wait for official conclusions," she said about Wechat.

Zhen said that she had supported products made in China, unlike a number of her contemporaries who "worship" foreign products. … it has also deeply concerned me. It will be really difficult to restore people's trust in our national brands. After all, children are the soul of parents, "she said.

A thorough investigation

At least two different vaccines – rabies, diphtheria and tetanus (DPT) – made by Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology are Known to be Defective

The Xinhua News Agency reports that at least 113,000 doses of the company's rabies vaccine are affected.

In a statement, the Food and Drug Administration Jilin stated that 253,338 doses of Changsheng DTP vaccine were defective This lot was sold to the Shandong Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control

It results from an earlier incident, in November In 2017, when 400,000 doses of the same vaccine were produced by another company, the Wuhan Institute, eight provinces or cities immediately announced that they would stop or suspend the use of human rabies vaccine. n of Changsheng, while four others claimed to have never used it.

It is unclear The Changsheng vaccine was made public following an official inspection of the company 's facilities on July 15, during which the authorities found that the. company manufactured production and test records, falsified production specifications. and equipment, CFDA officials said at a briefing on Sunday.

Although being abroad Monday during a visit to Africa, President Xi was briefed on the vaccine crisis and said that drug safety was the responsibility of the government and the Party. Communist.

He called on the authorities to "scrape the poison" in their efforts to rectify vaccine problems. On Sunday, Prime Minister Li Keqiang, the country's number two, announced an "in-depth" investigation into the process of producing and selling vaccines in China, claiming that the incident had "broken people's spirits."

be resolutely punished with zero tolerance. (The government) will resolutely repress all illegal and criminal acts that endanger the lives of people, "said the central government of China

The vaccine crisis will undermine the authorities' attempts to restore public confidence in Chinese. food and drugs after a series of large-scale controversies over the last decade

In a statement released on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Changsheng management said it felt "very shameful and guilty" about vaccines. The company will learn a lesson and take practical corrective action and rectify it completely, "the report said.

For their mistake, Changsheng was fined 3,442,887 yuan ($ 507,843) by the Chinese government. Governance

The state tabloid, the Global Times, said Sunday in an unusually direct editorial that the supply of safe vaccines to the population was "a test of the g

" State, China Daily, said in an editorial the same day that transparency was necessary for the public to be satisfied.

"Authorities Should Communicate Any Information They Know About the Incident The vaccine scandal is just the latest in a series of controversies surrounding counterfeit or defective products made in China.

] In 2008, about 300,000 Chinese infants became ill after drinking According to a 2015 report, nearly half of China's food processing factories still failed to meet internationally acceptable standards, according to figures released in 2015. [19659003] 19659003] Even condiments such as soy sauce and spice blend have not escaped false alarms, after the authorities in northern China demolished several factories manufacturing counterfeit versions. Popular products in 2017.

[ad_2]
Source link