WHO urges tighter regulations for private vaccines
Print Edition
THE World Health Organization yesterday urged tighter regulation of privately sold vaccines in China amid an ongoing scandal involving more than 20 provincial regions.
The case involves the illegal and improper storage, transport and sale of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of vaccines.
“The vaccines that are in the private sector need to be managed, stored, handled, distributed and used in accordance with recognized standards,” Lance Rodewald, a WHO expert on immunization, told a briefing in Beijing. “This is a very serious situation, it’s being taken seriously. We take it seriously. We want to see the root causes identified so that remedies can be provided.”
However, he stressed that the vaccines involved wouldn’t be toxic or harmful, they may just have lost their effectiveness.
China’s public vaccination system is fundamentally sound, Rodewald said, adding that the expired private-sector vaccines did not pose a threat to children who received them.
“Parents should be comfortable knowing that their child will not have a toxic reaction,” he said, although some children “may need to be revaccinated.”
Standard vaccines such as those for polio, hepatitis B and measles are mandatory for all children in China and supplied by the state, while parents can opt to buy additional immunizations privately such as those for meningitis, influenza or rotavirus.
Rodewald suggested that China should add the influenza, pneumonia, meningitis and rotavirus vaccines to the mandatory list to be provided by the government for all children.
Some Chinese parents who doubted the quality of vaccines being used on the Chinese mainland had been taking their children to Hong Kong to receive immunizations, he said, but added that their worries were uncalled for.
He said the WHO is confident in the safety of vaccines produced on the mainland and that there was no need to go to Hong Kong.
At the weekend, Ko Wing-man, head of Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection, said he would be keeping a close eye on the number of children traveling from the mainland to Hong Kong for vaccinations, according to a report in the city’s Wen Wei Po newspaper.
Ko said that if Hong Kong children are affected and supplies are insufficient, authorities will consider refusing to accept non-local children.
However, the newspaper said that records over the past two years showed that the number of such children was very low.
In the ongoing investigation into the improper sale of problematic vaccines, authorities have so far arrested more than 130 suspects.
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