The use of vaccines for a fatal infectious disease that caused 22 deaths in the past two months has been postponed by new vaccine safety rules issued following a high-profile scandal.
During the peak infection season for hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) in March and April, 298,894 cases were reported, and 22 people died, according to statistics from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Although HFMD vaccines have been developed and produced, they have been kept off the shelves because the details of new vaccine safety rules released in April have not yet been issued, financial news site yicai.com reported Thursday.
"We are aware of the outbreak of HFMD in kindergartens, but we don't know yet when we can have the vaccines for children," a staff member from an epidemic prevention station in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province told the Global Times on Thursday.
Not only has trade in HFMD vaccines been halted, but trade in all secondary category vaccinations [voluntary immunizations for diseases like polio, mumps and hepatitis B] has been stopped, a medicine distributor based in Guangxi was quoted by yicai.com as saying.
"The vaccine is not the only solution for HFMD, because the disease can be cured, and there are plenty of other ways to prevent it, such as ultraviolet sterilization of public venues," said Wang Yuedan, a professor at Peking University's School of Basic Medical Sciences.
HFMD is caused by a group of enteroviruses, including EV71, that affect the heart and lungs and can lead to death. Infants and children are most vulnerable to the disease, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
China has developed a vaccine against HFMD that prevented 97.3 percent of test subjects from contracting EV71, according to the Institute of Medical Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the vaccine's developer, Xinhua reported in March.
The new vaccine safety rules were released by the State Council on April 23 after a March scandal revealed that improperly stored or expired vaccines worth 310 million yuan ($47.8 million) allegedly had been sold in more than 20 provinces and regions since 2011.
