China vaccine scandal sees 37 detained

At least 37 suspects have been detained and 13 wholesalers put under investigation over a vaccine scandal that has raised deep concern about safety, Chinese media said on Wednesday.

The case involves the illegal and improper storage, transport and sale of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of vaccines — many of them expired, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The incident is the latest health and safety scandal to emerge in China, where 300,000 children fell ill, six of them dying, in a notorious 2008 case involving milk powder contaminated with melamine.

The two linchpin suspects in the latest scare are a mother and daughter duo from Shandong province in eastern China, Xinhua said, citing investigating officials.

From 2010, the pair illegally sold 25 different kinds of expired or improperly stored vaccines worth more than 570 million yuan ( 88 million), it added.

They included shots for polio, rabies, hepatitis B and flu for both children and adults, Caijing magazine said, citing drug safety officials.

At the weekend, the Shandong Province Food and Drug Administration identified 107 wholesalers who supplied the pair, and 193 retailers across the country who were their clients.

Public fury has erupted over authorities' delay in publicising the case, which only came to light this month despite the pair being arrested in April 2015, almost a year ago.

“We endured melamine, we endured poisoned drug capsules, we endured milk made of leather shoes. It's as if you’ve killed off all the adults and so now start on the children!” cried one user on China's Twitter-like Weibo.