Government action on vaccine scandal
Print Edition
CHINA has banned drug wholesalers from selling vaccines and is demanding more accountability following a scandal in which improperly stored vaccines were sold nationwide.
Government officials will be required to resign if they fail to perform their supervision duties well, according to the directive signed by Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday.
The decision, which took effect the same day, amends a regulation on managing the country’s B-class, or non-compulsory, vaccines. It requires they be distributed in the same way as the A-class vaccines in China’s compulsory immunization program.
B-class vaccines must be procured by county-level disease control institutions directly from manufacturers and sent directly to hospitals, with the process organized by provincial-level disease control bodies, according to the directive.
It also requires disease control bodies, hospitals and clinics to keep clear records of purchases and received inventory.
The decision also improves management of cold-chain storage and transport, prohibiting vaccines from leaving the cold-chain system and requiring regular temperature monitoring.
Institutions or hospitals must request storage temperature records on receiving vaccines, the directive said.
China is also to set up a vaccine tracking system where enterprises and user agencies must record information about the circulation and use of vaccines so that even the smallest vaccine package can be pinpointed anywhere in its life cycle.
All agencies handling vaccines must report vaccines without a clear source or recognizable packaging to drug authorities. These vaccines will be destroyed under the joint watch of drug and health authorities.
The directive also strengthens accountability. Fines for serious violators, such as those improperly storing and transporting vaccines, will be increased.
Last month, the public were shocked and appalled when the news that improperly stored vaccines worth millions of dollars were sold to patients across the country. The State Council said that 357 officials implicated in cases involving the illegal sale of improperly stored vaccines would be punished.
In the eastern city of Ningbo, there was a 25 percent reduction in the number of children being vaccinated between March 18 and 31, according to the local disease prevention and control center.
Local authorities across the country are trying the quell public unease.
At Zhecheng Hospital in central China’s Henan Province, health workers were handing out vaccine information to parents yesterday.
“Some children will have side-effects after being vaccinated, but it doesn’t mean the vaccines are problematic,” said Zhao Xiaolei, a head nurse at the hospital.
In northeast China’s Jilin Province, authorities are pioneering a digital system that makes the storage of vaccines transparent to the public.
“Here the fridge temperatures can be seen by the public, and an alarm will be triggered if the temperature is deemed ‘abnormal,”’ said a staff member at a health center in the provincial capital, Changchun. “Each vaccine will be labeled with a bar code, and its storing and transportation process can be supervised via the code.”
In Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province, a smartphone app has been developed that shares vaccine information.
“Each batch of vaccines will be recorded in the app for the public to check,” said an employee at a community health center.
Meanwhile, health authorities have urged parents to continue to have their children vaccinated. Immunization is the most economic, effective and safest way of preventing, controlling and eradicating communicable diseases, said Mao Qun’an, spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
“The national immunization program has been very successful in the control of preventable diseases,” he said.
See ‘monitored’ on A4
(Xinhua)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
