Dereliction of duty led to vaccine scandal and endangered kids' lives

At least 360 infants in Zhoukou city, Central China's Henan province, have been reportedly given expired vaccines as part of the routine childhood vaccination since last June. Two of the infants have died and one is in hospital. The local health bureau said relevant departments have formed an investigation team to deal with the case. Comments:

Both the local center for disease control and prevention and food and drug administration should be held responsible for poor management of vaccines. Instead of holding all the employees accountable and offering proper compensation to the victim families, the local disease control center just fired the person who injected the vaccines in the hope of defusing the crisis. Also, the expired vaccines are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg given the lack of supervision and poor healthcare conditions in rural areas.

Beijing News, Sept 19