In 2004, 6,000 non-qualifying vaccines were found by the Suqian Medical Products Administration of eastern China’s Jiangsu province to have caused injury to about 3,000 children.
In June 2005, the Center for Anti-Epidemic and Health Protection of Dazhuang town in Si county, Anhui province, conducted Hepatitis A vaccines on 25,000 elementary and secondary school students. However, 121 of them suffered adverse effects, including one death and 20 severe cases.
During 2007, there were also several cases of casualties among children administered vaccines in northern China’s Shanxi province. But local authorities strictly controlled any reporting on the health crisis until 2010, when reporter Wang Keqin published his findings in China Economic Times after interviewing 78 households with child victims who received sub-standard shots.
Wang’s coverage sparked nationwide indignation at and distrust in Chinese-made vaccines.
In 2009, Jingang Andy Biological Products illegally added nucleic acid material in its rabies vaccines, leading to a marked reduction in virus antigen content and nearly halving the vaccine’s efficacy.
In 2012, an illegal vaccine case worth over 100 million yuan (about $15.5 million) was brought to light by police in Weifang city, Shandong province, involving influenza, hepatitis B, rabies, and chickenpox vaccines.
On July 15, 2018, a local medical products administration of northeastern China’s Jilin province said in a notice that Changsheng Bio-Technology falsified production records. Later, the firm was found to have sold more than 250,000 substandard DPT vaccines—designed to protect babies against diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus—in Shandong province.
