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 The case involving a nearly $90 million black market vaccine ring
has ignited public ire and underscored regulatory weaknesses.
Police have detained 37 people in the northern province of Shandong,
which is at the heart of the scandal that was exposed over the last
week.
The vaccines, including ones against meningitis, rabies and other
illnesses, are suspected of being sold in dozens of provinces around
China since 2011.
The government has said the vaccines themselves were real, though
traded illegally.
The scandal has stirred angry debate, casting a shadow over
government ambitions to bolster the domestic drug industry and
underlining the challenge it faces to regulate a widespread and
fragmented medicine supply chain.
The case has centered on a mother, surnamed Pang, and her daughter
illegally selling vaccines to re-sellers around the country.
Li Guoqing, head of the food and drug watchdog's drug supervision
department, told a news conference that Pang had previously been
given a suspended jail sentence for a similar crime.
"During the period of the suspended sentence, this criminal evaded
supervision and control and continued to engage in the criminal act
of illegally selling vaccines," he said, in comments streamed on a
government website.
Li admitted there were "certain loopholes in our regulatory work"
that allowed the vaccines to circulate on the Chinese market for so
long before being found, but said there were simply not enough
people for the job.
"At present our country has 12,000 drug wholesalers, 5,000
production firms and more than 400,000 drug retailers. Regulatory
targets are many, but there are few people on the ground, making
regulation difficult," Li said.
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"There aren't even 500 people with the aptitude to inspect drugs.
There are dead spaces and blind zones for regulation and
inspection."
The issue of regulation, from food and drugs to online sales, has
become increasingly contentious in China as it looks to cast off a
reputation for poor quality and safety.
The case has drawn ire from Premier Li Keqiang, who said regulatory
bodies, including the health ministry and police, needed to work
more in tandem, and that "dereliction of duty" would not be
tolerated.
Some people have seen an echo of a 2008 scandal when milk tainted
with the industrial chemical melamine led to the deaths of six
infants and made thousands sick.
The government says it has not found any spike in abnormal reactions
to inoculations.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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