Illegal vaccine fallout: clinics deserted as public lose confidence; lawyers support patients' rights; failure blamed on 'private market'

by MICHAEL WOODHEAD

The issue of the 2 million substandard vaccines distributed across China continues to make waves in the media and for the government, with some surprising developments.

In a bold move, a group of more than 40 lawyers has written an open letter to the State Council demanding that the government 'protect the public's rights to information and compensation' in regard to the health consequences of the illegal vaccines. In their letter, they pose five questions:

• How do individuals know if they have received the substandard vaccine?
• How can people find out whether the vaccine they received was effective, and if necessary the need to re-vaccinate - and who will bear the cost?
• Why were the public not informed of these risks associated with vaccination?
• Why did the vaccine quality monitoring system set up in 2006 fail in early warning?
• For those with vaccine injury, how will this be remedied?

According to Caixin, one of the authors of the letter is Guangdong lawyer and mother of a baby Wang Shengsheng. She herself got one of the suspect vaccines for hepatitis B and was shocked to discover that she may have put her baby at risk.

Wang Shengsheng says she had her baby vaccinated with both essential and non-essential vaccines on the strong recommendation of health authorities and was told they were both necessary and safe. She says she now expects full and prompt disclosure of all results from the investigation, particularly in relation to the batch numbers and locations of the affected vaccines. She says there is also a need for authorities to learn lessons from this scandal so that health consumers can be confident about future treatments and thus have the right to 'informed consent'. This freedom of information should include access to adverse event reports for individual vaccines that are derived from vaccine monitoring programs, she said.

Wang Shengsheng said China also needed a system of compensation for patients with recognised vaccine-related injuries, similar to the system already operating in the US.

Meanwhile, Chinese media outlets such as Sohu Health are reporting that parents are staying away from vaccination clinics as they have lost confidence in the safety and quality of the vaccines being offered.

Reporters who visited community health centres in Guangzhou found them almost empty, and with the few families there expressing concerns about the vaccines being used.

A doctor on duty at a clinic in Tongling said: "Usually at this time we should be full of people. But many parents do not dare vaccinate their children at this time. For the last two days we have been calling people telling them that our vaccines are safe but they are still reluctant to come. They say they are waiting for this matter to blow over."

A doctor at the Zhejiang Tonglu Street Community Health Centre told reporters that they had received dozens of calls from concerned parents asking about the quality and safety of the vaccines they had received. He said parents were still bringing in children to have the essential (Class 1, public funded) vaccines that were not part of the scandal, but use of the Class 2 (private market) vaccines had really dropped.

Doctors at other community clinics were emphasising to worried families that their region's vaccine supplies were on the 'safe list' as they were still part of the public centralised system that had always been well supervised and had not been implicated in purchase of substandard vaccines. They said they were now glad that the vaccine supply and distribution had been kept under control of the government disease control bureau and not 'relaxed' and privatised, as had been the case for many rural counties.

An opinion article in Caixin said the substandard vaccine scandal showed the stark contrast between China's successful and safe public vaccine program and the corrupt and unsafe 'private market' vaccine supply system. The article said the 2006 decision to relax controls on the sale and supply of 'optional' vaccines (Class 2) to allow a free market system had backfired with disastrous consequences for public health.

The article describes how local communicable disease control (CDC) bureaus had been encouraged to 'go to market' to generate extra funds for their own running costs. As with hospitals, these local units had been starved of funding and therefore came to rely on commissions from vaccines to boost their income. This resulted in local CDC bureaus buying the cheapest possible vaccines and charging the maximum markup to patients. It also meant that they strongly recommended non-essential vaccines to families, so that they could make extra profit.

Therefore,  any reform to prevent further substandard vaccine incidents will  need to address the "vaccine commission cash cow" phenomenon as well as ensuring the quality of the vaccine distribution system, it concludes.

Week 2 of the vaccine scandal: latest developments

by MICHAEL WOODHEAD
It is quite remarkable that in the middle of the second week of the scandal around distribution of dud vaccines there has been no comment whatsoever from China's health minister Li Bin. In fact the response from the Chinese government could be summed up as an attitude of "Crisis? What crisis?"

The official line has been to focus on the perpetrators - the illegal wholesalers and distributors in Shandong -  and to avoid any analysis of how things could go so badly wrong - and what the Chinese public should do about it all.

It seems clear that the government has been 'harmonising' (deleting and censoring) media and online articles and social media discussions relating to the vaccine scandal. The media articles that originally drew attention to the crisis have been removed, and instead replaced with bland assurances from officials that the matter is being investigated and all should be well.

Most of the permitted coverage has been along the lines of the WHO China response, namely:

• The dud vaccines are unlikely to cause any adverse effects even if not handled according to the cold chain.
• Most of the vaccines have already been used, and there have been no reports of spikes in adverse events.
• The illegal distribution is being investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

That's it.

There has been no response to important questions such as:

• How many people received dud vaccines and have any of them acquired diseases because of poor immune protection?
• What are the most frequent and potentially most severe diseases covered by the dud vaccines?
• What needs to be done to trace/follow up/test and re-vaccinate those who have received dud vaccines?
• How can the public be reassured that vaccines currently in the system are not duds? Batch numbers? Locations?

These are just a few of the fundamental questions that any professional and competent medical regulator such as the FDA would be asking. And yet in China there has been no such response. There have been some vague reassuring statements from the China FDA, but no detailed information about the scale of the problem and how it will be addressed.

Once again the "SARS hero" Dr Zhong Nanshan has been given airtime to comment. Speaking at a national influenza conference in Hainan (unfortunate timing) Dr Zhong said there was no need to doubt the quality of Chinese made vaccines and no reasons for panicked parents to seek foreign vaccines or to go to places such as Hong Kong for vaccinations. He also said (quite rightly) that he hoped the vaccine scare would not undermine China's immunisation program, which has markedly reduced or eradicated diseases such as measles, whooping cough, polio and hepatitis B in China.



Fine words, and not to be disputed, but there is a need for more leadership on this issue if public faith in the public vaccination system is to be restored. As I've said before, trust is not easily won and it is a two-way street. If the government does not trust the public with information - if it closes down the communication channels and deletes articles about the vaccine problems then it will just encourage the public to turn to the rumour network.

On a wider level there is little hope for a robust medical and healthcare safety system when there is a culture of punishing those who speak out. In other countries there has been grudging acceptance by authorities that transparency and accountability are needed in clinical matters to ensure safety. Staff have to feel confident that they can speak out - and also feel that it is their duty to do so, rather than feel intimidated or a false sense of loyalty to persons or organisations. In China under Xi Jinping there is currently a major crackdown on those who are outspoken or who dare to question "the core".

And so at the end of March we find that China is facing its biggest health safety crisis since the melamine in milk saga of 2011. And yet if you turn to the medical forums such as DXY.cn there is no discussion and no advice there. They have presumably also been 'harmonised'. A week ago when the scandal first became public, the Deputy director of the Department of Immunology at Peking University Professor Wang Yue expressed shock at the safety implications of the dud vaccine trading.

"This is murder" he said, referring tho the likelihood of people dying from vaccine preventable diseases.

The article has now been taken down.

It's important for Li Bin to show some leadership and act swiftly to restore the public's faith in China's vaccination system. If not, vaccines may become like China's milk formula industry - untrusted, shunned and encouraging consumers to turn to expensive alternative 'grey market' suppliers.

Meanwhile, here are some links to articles of interest:

SARS hero Zhong Nanshan reassures on the vaccine problem, urges public to maintain faith in China's vaccine program

Propaganda Ministry directive: "Don't hype the news on illegal vaccines"

VOA article on the vaccine articles that have been removed and the vaccine keywords that have been blocked on social media

Netizens claim that China's propaganda ministry is highlighting news about Japan's war crimes as a distraction from discussion about vaccine scandal

Hong Kong media raise fears that vaccines may be the new milk powder - will mainland 'raiders' flood Hong Kong to buy up good quality vaccines?

11 things we know about the expired vaccine scandal

by MICHAEL WOODHEAD
The expired vaccine 'shame' originating in Shandong has caused a huge outcry of concern in China and has prompted angry reactions from the very top leaders, including Li Keqiang. 

Here's what we know so far:

1. More than 2 million doses of expired or spoiled vaccine worth $88 million have been sold by a rogue Shandong wholesaler since 2011.

2. Between 12 and 25 different vaccine products were involved. They were Class 2 (non-essential/optional) vaccines such as rabies and Japanese encephalitis, which are distributed via private wholesalers rather than though the centralised buying system used for Class 1 (essential/state-funded vaccines). The vaccine products affected are said to include: 

• Rabies, Rabies immune globulin
• Varicella, 
• Haemophilus influenza B (Hib), 
• Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (23-valent) 
• Meningococcal A/C vaccine 
• Influenza vaccine, 
• Hepatitis B vaccine

3. The mother and daughter team of rogue sellers have been arrested, along with 37 other suspects in Shandong. They are believed to have bought cheap vaccines that had expired or had not been stored or transported according to cold chain methods to ensure they remained viable. Three pharmaceutical companies have been investigated and one has had its manufacturing and distribution suspended. A further nine wholesalers are under investigation.

4. The National Health and Family Planning Commission and the China FDA say they are now "resolutely investigating the relevant departments" and actively tracking down where the vaccines have been sold to 24 provinces. Officials say each vaccine and recipient should be traceable by barcode and batch number. Authorities are now investigating the case at the behest of Premier Li Keqiang, who has called in law enforcement authorities and said there were obvious loopholes in the regulatory system for the supply and distribution of Class 2 vaccines.

5. The WHO say that there should be no major adverse effects in recipients of vaccines that have expired or not been handled according to the cold chain procedures - however the recipients may not have received an adequate immune response and would not be protected against the infections for which the vaccine was given. The WHO has urged the Chinese public to maintain faith in the immunisation system and it emphasises that vaccination programs have helped reduce China's high burden of infectious diseases.

6. The NHFPC says there have not been any notable spikes in vaccine related adverse effects but it is now checking figures - particularly for the Shandong area.

7. Chinese netizens are asking why the information was only brought to light in February 2016 when the authorities became aware of the problem in April 2015. This raises obvious questions of whether vaccines could have been traced and recalled before being given to unsuspecting patients.

8. There has been public outrage and 'vaccine panic', with many Chinese expressing scepticism about the quality of Chinese made and distributed vaccines and anger about the integrity of the medical safety surveillance and regulatory system. There are fears for vaccination rates may fall as the public lose faith in public vaccine programs.

9. Some of the more open media outlets have blamed China's lax approach to food and medicine safety on the authorities' lack of accountability and transparency and also the routine censorship of and control of 'bad' news. Caixin magazine ran a feature that harked back to a previous hepatitis B vaccine adverse events scandal from 2013, but the article was later deleted.

10. Some analysts have said that the Class 2 non-essential vaccine distribution system is ripe for corruption. It has minimal regulation and there are strong financial incentives for unscrupulous wholesalers and local disease control departments to collude to make commissions and backhanders off sales of unreliable vaccines.

11. China CDC director Wang Huaqing says that after a full investigation some children and adults may need to undergo repeat vaccinations to ensure they are covered against certain diseases. However he says the more widespread impact is likely to be on herd immunity levels in the population rather than individual risk of infection.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Medical news in the Year of the Sheep

Chinese New Year is upon us, with businesses closing up for a long holiday and most Chinese families looking forward to a reunion. But of course people still get sick at Spring Festival and the Chinese media has been full of stories praising the heroic and dedicated doctors and nurses who forego the holiday and put duty ahead of family to stay at work.  There are stories of doctors working solo for 24 hours to keep up with all the demand during the Spring Festival. From Hubei there is the story of the man bitten by his rabid pet dog who went to the hospital and was hugely relieved to find that the infectious diseases doctor was on duty to give him a rabies injection. At Fuzhou Hospital on New Years Eve the medical and nursing staff gather together to have the "big family banquet" that they would normally have with their families at home.  And there is even a story of the doctor at a Zhejiang leper colony who was urged by his ailing patients to go home and see his family rather than spend New Year on duty at the sanatorium.

Not all doctors have been heaped with praise at Chinese New Year, however. In Guangzhou there has been an uproar among the medical community after the city authorities sent anti-corruption teams in to raid hospitals just before Spring Festival. The city disciplinary affairs committee said the inspection teams were looking for evidence of bribes and 'hongbao' (red envelopes) given by patients to doctors. The raids have so far turned up little evidence of bribery, and doctors have been indignant at being suspected of corruption. They objected to having their everyday items such as snacks being documented - and also being questioned in detail about the origin of their possessions - and even for receipts for goods. Doctors said the actions of the inspectors went beyond their powers and the actions should have been a matter for the police. One doctor said a public hospital was not a place where bribes could be openly given or solicited among colleagues - and he was also indignant that many doctors had prepared hongbao or gifts for their families which were assumed by inspectors to be bribes from patients.

Chinese New Year is also a peak risk time for influenza in China. In Guangdong it has been reported there have been 53 cases and 13 deaths from  H7N9 avian influenza. In neighbouring Hong Kong there has also been a very severe flu season caused by the regular influenza H3N2 strain which has been causing as many as 18 deaths per day in the city. There have been reports of shortages of antivirals such as Tamiflu in Hong Kong, and the flu vaccine this year has been ineffective because the H3N2 strain of flu is a new mutation that is not covered by the vaccine. Of course influenza does not stop at the border, so we can only assume that the flu toll has been equally high in mainland China.

Another major infectious disease under the microscope this week is the recent outbreak of measles  affecting more than 1200 people in Beijing. Infectious disease specialists in the capital found that most of the cases originated in wholesale clothing markets popular with  locals and international visitors - so an MMR vaccination might be a pre-requisite if you are going to the Silk Market. The analysis found that many of the cases occurred in migrant workers who (unlike Beijing residents and tourists) had low levels of measles vaccination. The researchers recommended that outreach services be set up to vaccinate migrant workers in Beijing and "the offer of measles vaccine to workers as they register to live and work in the commodity markets might be a reasonable strategy to prevent future measles outbreaks."

In other news this week - the high demand for blood products in China is driving  a thriving black market in organised gangs of donors, organised by the so-called "blood heads" who are paid thousands of RMB for supplying blood. In the field of diabetes, some Chinese endocrinologists have been blasted in the pages of the Lancet for writing a review article that recommended the use of expensive new drugs as first line treatment for diabetes. Their critics say the endocrinologists failed to mention the more effective and cheaper drugs such as metformin - and the Chinese doctors also failed to mention their financial conflicts of interest with the Big Pharma makers of the expensive new drugs.

And finally, the quality of medical education in China has been questioned in several articles published this week. The Year of the Sheep is a milestone for China's medical educators in that they are now requiring a standard 5+3 medical degree + internship program be implemented nationally. However, some commentators have said that the new system will be no better than the current haphazard postgraduate 'Masters' programs if medical graduates receive insufficient clinical experience and supervision. They also say that the internship scheme should include 'exit examinations' to ensure that trainees have actually acquired the specialist skills they have trained in. Coincidentally this week Shanghai media report that trainee doctors get little experience in anatomy because there is a national shortage of donated cadavers. Chinese culture prohibits citizens from 'donating their bodies to science' as is done in the west. This means that Chinese medical graduates get all their anatomy learning from textbooks and have very little "hands on" experience. This is worrying for students going into specialties such as surgery - as they may never have practiced techniques such as cervical spine surgery before being asked to do the real thing. Not surprising then that a special anatomy cadaver training class at Shanghai's Fudan University was heavily oversubscribed.

新年快乐!

My January news blog ...

Regrettably, I am cutting back on my blogging about China medical news this year. I've been doing this for more than a year now, out of enthusiasm and my own personal interest in the area, but it's becoming too much of a burden on my time. And of course it is all unpaid. Unless there is a sponsor out there who wishes a regular stream of China medical news? After my day job doing much the same thing about Australian medical news I find it hard to sit down at home and do the writing for this blog. So from now on I shall probably only update the site about once a week. That is not enough to cover the many things happening in healthcare in China, but that's your lot. As they say in Yorkshire, you don't get owt for nowt.

This week I have been reading about how patients in Shanghai with chronic diseases will now be able to pick up their repeat prescriptions from community clinics instead of the big hospitals. It's a move intended to relieve the overcrowding at the tertiary hospitals and sounds like an obvious and sensible idea. Whether it will work or not depends on whether China's hospital-obsessed patients can be persuaded to show up at the low-status community clinics.

There are also moves to try curb China's high levels (approaching 50%) of caesarean section intervention in pregnancy. A feature article by Yang Wanli describes how some obstetricians in China are trying to persuade women to opt for natural birth. However, the barriers are a lack of available analgesia for women in labour and the industrial production-line mentality of China's hospitals.

Rural health is a major issue in China this month, with the State Council approving a plan to boost the rural medical workforce. The Council wants to see rural areas of China have qualified doctors replace the current 'barefoot' practitioners. However, well-meaning intentions will not fix the huge rural medical workforce problem in China. The simple problem is that university qualified doctors do not want to work in rural villages. The pay is pathetic, there is no status and the workload is high. As this article shows, the current rural medical workforce is mostly unqualified and often dangerously lacking in skills.

That's not to say that rural health is completely hopeless in China. There have been great achievements in some areas of public health such as immunisation and basic child health. However, as a major article by Chinese paediatricians the Archives of Diseases in Childhood shows, the next step for China is to try reduce the incidence of more complex diseases in children. China has done well in tackling the easily preventable causes of child disease, now it must turn its attention to the difficult stuff - the consequences of preterm birth, and the many congenital and metabolic diseases.

One problem with monitoring China's progress in child health is knowing whether or not the official  figures are true. Take measles vaccination for example. According to official reports, China has 95% measles vaccine coverage of infants. But when researchers analysed the causes of measles outbreaks in Hunan and Jiangsu that affected hundreds of children they found that the actual rates of measles immunisation more like 80%.

And finally, for those who put their faith in western healthcare companies helping improve the health of China, take a cautionary look at the sorry tale of GSK. A well regarded company in the west, GSK was the subject of high profile bribery allegations and a court case that jailed one of its British executives for  his role in the bribes to doctors and hospitals. Now the company is reported to be cutting the jobs of 1000 employees in China following the downturn in its business there (including a 60% drop in revenue).

Most Chinese unwilling to pay for vaccines

by Michael Woodhead
Most Chinese people are unwilling to pay for vaccines to prevent common infections such as influenza and pneumonia, a study has found.
In a survey of more than 2600 people in three provinces, researchers from the China Center for Health Development Studies, Peking University asked whether people would be willing to pay the market price for influenza vaccine that costs 80 yuan ($12) and for a course of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine that costs 860 yuan ($138). Only 8% of people surveyed said they would pay for pneumococcal vaccine while 45% said they were willing to pay for influenza vaccine. The average price people were willing to pay was 60 yuan for influenza vaccine and 200 yuan for pneumococcal vaccine, according to the study in Vaccine.
Put another way, the number of people willing to have pneumococcal vaccine would increase from 8% to 25% if the price reduced from 860 to 400 yuan. The demand for influenza vaccine would increase from 45% to 70% if the price reduced from 80 to 40 yuan.
The researchers said the widespread unwillingness to pay for vaccines reflected their high price in China and the lack of any government subsidy. They said profit mark-ups on vaccines mark ups were high in China (as much as 43%) and they generally cost much more than in other countries.
"Our results suggest that both innovative vaccine pricing mechanism and expansion of financing sources are needed to alleviate economic barriers to self-paid vaccines," they concluded.

Sichuan polio cases show need for better vaccine coverage

by Michael Woodhead
A small outbreak of polio that occurred in Sichuan was derived from a vaccine-related strain, according to researchers from the WHO Regional Polio Reference Laboratory in Beijing.
In a new report they describe the strains of polio virus isolated from three cases of flaccid paralysis that occurred in an isolated region of Aba, Sichuan in 2011 and 2012.  They say the virus strain was similar to that used in the trivalent (Sabin) oral polio vaccine, but with minor changes that affected its attenuation and temperature sensitivity. The virus was found in the three cases of polio, all of which occurred in unimmunised infants below the age of one. The virus was also found in one close contact. The new strain of polio virus appears to have been circulating in the remote community for about seven months, they said."
"Our findings reinforce the point that circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus can emerge and spread in isolated communities with immunity gaps, and highlight the emergence risks of type 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus accompanying the trivalent OPV used, they said.
"To solve this issue, it is recommended that type 2 OPV should be removed from the trivalent OPV or use of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) instead.
The findings are reported in Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

Six of the top medical news stories from China

1. China has a huge shortage of midwives, and would need a further 800,000 to meet the WHO standard of one for every thousand women of child-bearing age, according to a new report. Health officials say the problem will worsen as China adopts a two child policy.

2. Efforts to control pneumococcal disease and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) in children by vaccination are failing due to low immunisation rates and delayed immunisation, a study from Shanghai shows. A review of vaccination records for 28,000 children up to the age of seven found that 51% had one dose of Hib vaccine and 11.4% had one dose of pneumococcal vaccine. Only 8.2% of children had Hib vaccine at the right time and only 0.5% had timely pneumococcal vaccine. Rates were particularly poor for migrant children, the study found.

3. Rates of hypertension have increased in China and yet treatment and control of the condition remain poor, according to researchers from Shandong. In a study of more than 4000 people they found that the incidence of hypertension increased from 2.9 per 100,000 people in 1991–1997 to 5.3 in 2004–2009 Antihypertensive treatment and control rates for hypertension were 5.7% and 1.7% in 1991–1997 and 19.9% and 7.6% in 2004–2009, respectively.

4. The rate of disabilities from road crashes in China has skyrocketed as the number of cars on the road has increased over the last two decades. The incidence rate for road traffic disabilities increased over time from 1.50 per 100,000 people in 1980 to 11.2 per 100 000 persons in 2005, according to Professor Zheng Xiaoying of the Institute of Population Research, Peking University.

5. Malaria is still a major problem in central China especially during floods and rainy periods of the summer. A study from Mengcheng County, Anhui found that there were 3683 malaria were notified during the study period of May to October 2007 Most of the cases occurred a week to a month after flooding and waterlogging. Public health action should be taken to control the potential risk of malaria epidemics after wet weather, the researchers from Shandong University said.

6. The recent outbreaks of H7N9 avian influenza also resulted in many mild and asymptomatic infections as well as severe life threatening cases, researchers from Guangdong have reported. Their surveillance program noted 21 cases of infection in Guangzhou, China in 2013 and 2014, of which several were mild or asymptomatic infection. Family clusters occurred, suggesting limited person-to-person transmission of the H7N9 virus, they said.

Four-fold rise in chickenpox shows China's one-dose varicella vaccination policy is not enough to prevent outbreaks

by Michael Woodhead
China needs to move from a one-dose to a two-dose varicella vaccination schedule because he current system is not preventing outbreaks of chickenpox, a study from Beijing has shown.
There have been more than 62 outbreaks of chickenpox (varicella) among children in the Fengtai district of Beijing since 2008 despite vaccination rates of over 80%, researchers have reported this month. They found that the number of varicella cases has increased fourfold in the district from
from 167 in 2008 to 622 in 2012. More than 60% of the cases were breakthrough infections in children who had been vaccinated, according to Dr Zhang Xue and colleagues at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University.
"These results indicated that in the Beijing Fengtai District, one-dose vaccination could not effectively protect the vaccination recipient from varicella infection or cut off the varicella transmission during the outbreak," they wrote.
Their study suggested that the efficacy of the varicella vaccine wanes after a few years, and in children with varicella, the average time since vaccination was six years, (76% of cases occurred more than five years after vaccination).
Varicella was also more common among children of migrant worker families, presumably because of lower vaccination rates and due to overcrowded living conditions.
The researchers said their findings showed that the single dose vaccine program introduced in 1997 was not sufficient to contain varicella in China.
"In summary, our study provides justification for implementing a two-dose varicella vaccination program in cities in China, such as Beijing, despite the presence of already-high vaccination coverage."

Measles resurgent in China as migrant children miss vaccinations

by Michael Woodhead
China looked like it was on track to eliminate measles until two years ago, but now the infection is making a comeback among unvaccinated young children, the World Health Organisation has warned.
In a report of the progress towards measles elimination in China a WHO surveillance study notes that China has seen dramatic reductions in rates of measles since it implemented and expanded childhood vaccination campaigns in the 1980s  and 1990s. Rates of the infection fell from 572 per 100,000 in the 1960s to below 10 per 100,000 since the 1990s. Since then, further reductions in measles have been seen as children have been given two doses of measles vaccine with uptake rates of more than 90%. There have also been additional 'catch up' measles vaccination campaigns in provinces where continuing outbreaks of measles have occurred. This resulted in the annual number of cases coming down from 140,000 per year in 2008 to under 10,000 in 2012. However, as the WHO Bulletin report notes, there has been a resurgence in 2013, with the number of cases bouncing back to around 24,000 in that year. The report says most of the measles cases occurred in young children who had missed one or all of their scheduled vaccination doses, although a few also occurred in adults. It says the resurgence is disappointing, especially as it follows intensive 'catch up' campaigns. In their report, the WHO researchers say it is likely that many of the unvaccinated children spreading measles will belong to migrant worker families who have left their hometown and thus drop out of the measles vaccination and reporting programs based in schools and local health centres.
"The resurgence of measles seen among young unvaccinated Chinese children in 2013 indicates a weakness in routine immunisation that allows some children to miss one or both of their scheduled doses of measles vaccine. Such weakness must be eliminated if a further resurgence in the next few years is to be avoided and measles is ever to be eliminated in China," they conclude.
"Improvements in the identification and location of children who are new to an area may permit marked improvements in vaccine coverage" they note.

The top 8 medical news stories from China for Thursday 1 May

1. A person's blood group may influence their survival from cancer according to oncologists in Guangzhou. In a study of patients with oesophageal cancer they found five year survival rates were 50 % for patients with blood type A, 45% for type B, 51% for type O, and 61% for type AB.

2. The incidence rate of type 1 diabetes is increasing at a rate of 14.2 % per year in Shanghai and if present trends continue, the number of new type 1 diabetes cases will double from 2016 to 2020, researchers say.

3. Chinese neurologists say people with atrial fibrillation may be able to avoid the need to take lifelong anticoagulant drugs to prevent stroke by using a minimally invasive surgery procedure called left atrial appendage closure (using a system created by Boston Scientific Corp - could be an advertorial).

4. The introduction of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) has increased access to healthcare for elderly people, but not had any effect on their overall health, a study from Nanjing University shows. The study found that the health cover did not affect overall health status and did not reduce the out-of-pocket spending of elderly people.

5. An outbreak of hand, foot, and mouth disease that hospitalised 1844 children in Central China from 2011 to 2012 was caused by a mixture of co-circulating coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16). and enterovirus I71 (EV71). This may have contributed to the genomic recombination between the pathogens say researchers from Wuhan University.

6. The whistleblower 'Corridor Doctor' doctor of Mianyang who worked in a corridor after being suspended from her job for two years, has now been sacked. Authorities said Dr Lan Yuefeng had been absent for almost two years and had been disruptive and uncooperative. Her colleagues rejected charges of overservicing at the hospital and went on strike claiming she had made false allegations and damaged their reputation.

7. Health authorities in Beijing are urging adults to have measles vaccination after a surge in cases in thecity. They say there has been a spike in cases in the past two months, and more than half of the infected are in adults, probably because protection from childhood vaccination has waned.

8. Radiologists in Sichuan claim that resting-state functional MRI could be useful in providing early and accurate diagnosis of ADHD. In a study published in Radiology, Dr Qiyong Gong of the West China Hospital of Sichuan University, showed that the boys with ADHD had altered structure and function in certain areas of the brain, such as the orbitofrontal cortex and the globus pallidus. that play in executive inhibitory control - the ability to control inappropriate behaviors or responses.

Today's Top 10 China medical news stories

1. China is to launch a national cervical cancer screening program to test 10 million Chinese women annually, the National Health and Family Planning Commission says. The move follows concerns about increasing rates of cervical cancer, especially in women under 35. China has 130,000 new cervical cancer cases a year and up to 30,000 deaths a year due to the disease.

2. Vaccination rates have fallen as much as 30% since the hepatitis B vaccine safety scare over the deaths of 17 infants, immunisation experts say. They said the drop in vaccination rates could put up to 500,000 infants at risk of serious vaccine-preventable diseases.

3. In a landmark study, Shanghai clinicians have shown that pulse oximetry is a simple and accurate method for detecting major congenital heart disease in newborn babies in China. Writing in the Lancet, they say the method should be used in all maternity hospitals.

4. Salmonella in China is becoming resistant to most antibiotics including ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone and azithromycin, "posing huge threat to public health and infection control" say clinicians in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

5. A Beijing doctor was punched by the husband of a pregnant woman who said the doctor had pinched her stomach and threatened to kill her. The woman admitted she had first cursed the doctor when she believed she had been ignored by him.

6. Seven leading hospitals in China have signed an alliance agreement to for a National Team to tackle difficult diseases.

7. Kindergartens in Beijing have been struck by the norovirus gastro bug and dozens of children are showing symptoms such as diarrhoea and vomiting.

8. Young Chinese people do not wish to pursue a career in the medical sector, as jobs in medical services were ranked lowest in a survey of desirable careers by recruitment site zhaopin.

9. Complaints about fake drugs and medical devices being sold online are the most frequent calls to the China Food and Drug Administration hotline.

10. Hospital clinics in Shanghai are overflowing with three-four hour waiting times and yet community clinics are sitting almost empty and 'general practitioners see few patients because the public has little confidence in the level of services provided, according to an article in China Daily.

"Fake" GPs in Shanghai | 5-in-1 vaccine shortage | Appointments by WeChat: China medical news for Friday 14 February

Shanghai appears to lead China in the introduction of family doctors, but many of the so-called general practitioners (GPs) are fake, says Zhu Shanzhu, the chairman of the Society of General Practice, Chinese Medical Association. In an article in Global Times, Dr Zhu says that Shanghai is on target to have a GP for every resident by 2020, when people will be able to register with a family doctor working out of their local community health centre. However, Dr Zhu says many of the family doctors assigned to the health centres are not true GPs because they are specialists such as surgeons. Shanghai must therefore commit to training doctors in family medicine, she said.

A second death has been reported from the novel influenza strain H10N8 in Jiangxi. According to Shanghai Daily, a 75-year-old man died in Nanchang. Health authorities have urged the public to stay away from live poultry.

Shortages of the popular paediatric 5-in-1 combination vaccine have been reported due to transport congestion and delays ove the Chinese New Year. The imported vaccine, made by Sanofi, immunises against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and Haemophilus influenza Type B and costs around 600 yuan for each of the four doses. Parents prefer it over free domestic vaccines because it reduces the number of needles their child has from 12 to four.

Hospitals in Beijing are offering appointments and medical results via WeChat, ECNS reports. The social media service is being offered by 21 municipal hospitals to patients who sign up and obtain a password.

A Shaanxi woman claims one of her kidneys was secretly removed during an operation she had more than 20 years ago. The woman made the shock discovery that she was missing a kidney when she had a hospital scan for back pain. The only possible explanation was that it must have been removed when she had an operation on her ovaries 26 years previously, she told TV reporters. The woman returned to the hospital where she had the operation but they rejected her claims and denied all responsibility for the incident.

A hospital in Hainan is pioneering a new model of "treat first, pay later" care. The hospital in Haikou has dropped the usual registration system in which patients pay a deposit ahead of treatment. the hospital managers say the new system is more convenient, but relies of the trust of patients to pay for their treatment afterwards. Non-payers will be put on a black list and refused further treatment, they said.

A Beijing academic has called on the government to stop the tobacco industry's deceptive marketing of "low tar, less harmful" cigarettes. Professor Yang Gonghuan of the Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, Institute of Basic Medical Science, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, says the claim that low tar cigarettes are less harmful is incorrect. However the slogan is used by industry to encourage smokers to stay with the habit. Writing in Tobacco Control, he urges the government to "stop the execution of this deceptive strategy for tobacco marketing".

And a kidney specialist in Guangzhou has been praised in the Chinese media for continuing to work despite being confined to a wheelchair. Reports say Dr Ke continued seeing 20 patients a day at the PLA 458 Hospital over the Chinese New Year despite having broken her patella and being unable to walk. Patients praised the doctor but she said any of her colleagues would have done the same thing.

News in brief: clinical studies from China

Measles is now rare in Guangzhou thanks to vaccination, but complete eradication will require vaccination of transient populations who now account for more than half of cases.

People who have a heart attack in China delay going to hospital for more than two hours, often because they don’t recognise the symptoms or their importance.

Chinese people consume dangerously high amounts of salt, with a Yantai study showing that 97% of men and 87% of women had intakes of over 6 g salt per day (mostly from added salt and soy sauce). Salt intake was related to high systolic blood pressure.

More than one in four new mothers in Guangzhou experience post-partum depression.

Compulsory routine infant vaccination with pneumococcal conjugate heptavalent vaccine would reduce pneumococcal disease in China by at least 32%, would prevent 2,682 deaths in the first five years of life and would save $1,190 million.

In rural China epilepsy goes untreated or undertreated in two out of three people with the condition, a Sichuan study has found. One third of people with epilepsy did not know about the disease and had not sought medical help.

The cultural pressure for gay men in China to marry means that their wives face a high risk of HIV and syphilis, researchers from Ningbo say. They found that only one in four gay men always used condoms with their wives, which explained HIV rates of more than 8% in women married to gay men.

Low vitamin A levels are linked to eye cysts (chalazia) in south west China

Weather has an important influence on measles transmission in China, with infection more likely after cold spells and during dry weather.

Medical news from China's media

In the China Daily, womens' hospitals says they are being inundated with inquiries from women about having a second child following the amendment to the family planning policy in early November. One hospital, the Women's Hospital of Zhejiang University's School of Medicine has opened a consultation clinic for women considering a second child.

Xinhua reports that two more babies have died after receiving hepatitis B vaccinations, this time in Shandong province. However, the report does not say which brand of vaccine the cases are related to, even though the Shenzhen Bio Kangtai vaccine has been withdrawn.
According to the provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention they have also received a report of a baby that died in October after a hepatitis B vaccination.
At least twelve infants are reported to have died in China after receiving vaccines against Hepatitis B.

The People's Daily has a report on gay college students being targeted for HIV prevention measures, as the number of cases in young gay men in China is increasing dramatically. The article says that in
Guangzhou there have been 117 cases of HIV in 48 colleges or universities, according to  the Guangzhou Disease Prevention and Control Center. Ninety percent were infected via homosexual behavior, with high risk sexual activities being common. Students are being targeted for safe sex behaviour campaigns and also for HIV testing.

CRI reports that a tourist from mainland China has brought H7N9 influenza into Taiwan.
Disease control authorities said an 86-year old  tourist from Jiangsu was confirmed with H7N9 avian influenza. The man showed first symptoms on December 19 and has been hospitalized since Dec 24.
This is Taiwan's second case of H7N9, the first imported case  occurred in April this year.

China reports 12th hepatitis B vaccine-related death

An infant in south China's Hainan Province died on Friday after receiving hepatitis B vaccine, local authorities said, bringing the total of such cases to 12 in the country.
Medical specialists are on their way to look into the cause of death in Lin'gao County in Hainan.
This is the third infant death linked to hepatitis B vaccines produced by the Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Co. Ltd.
Source: Peoples Daily

WHO defends China's hepatitis B vaccination programme

China's vaccines are produced and regulated in accordance with international standards, and the hepatitis B vaccination program is vital in safeguarding children against the illness, according to the World Health Organization.
Bernhard Schwartlander, China representative for the international health body, made these points during an interview with China Daily on Thursday.
"Given that the hepatitis B virus is still around, it's important for babies to get vaccinated," he said.
The WHO Beijing office met with the National Health and Family Planning Commission on Thursday to discuss the latest developments surrounding incidents in which 11 newborns have died after being inoculated against hepatitis B.
According to Schwartlander, it's difficult to establish a causal link between the vaccines and the babies' deaths since nearly all infants in China receive the vaccine as part of a very successful vaccination program.

Guangdong buys extra hepatitis B vaccine to replace suspect batches

Guangdong has purchased 1.45 million doses of hepatitis B vaccine for the province after health authorities halted the use of a vaccine suspected in the deaths of four babies.
A baby boy in Shenzhen died on Tuesday after being inoculated with hepatitis B vaccine produced by Biokangtai, a local pharmaceutical company.
His death was the fourth such recently after babies were inoculated with the hepatitis B vaccine produced by the company, according to China Food and Drug Administration.
Two babies in Hunan province and another in Sichuan province died recently after being injected with the Biokangtai vaccine.
On Friday, the administration and the National Health and Family Planning Commission asked all hospitals to stop using the vaccine produced by Biokangtai, and said it will investigate the cause of the deaths and examine the company's products.

Shenzhen Kangtai Hepatitis B vaccine withdrawn after four infant deaths

by Michael Woodhead
The China Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has suspended the use of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine for children manufactured by Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products (Shenzen Kangtai Shengwu Zhipin, 深圳康泰生物制品股份有限公司) after the four deaths were reported among children who received the vaccine. According to an announcement by the SFDA on 20 Dec, the four deaths were reported following vacination with batches of the company's vaccine in Hunan, Guangdong and Sichuan. The SFDA says an investigation into the cause of death is still underway and until the results of this investigation are available, the use of all batches of the vaccine is being suspended immediately, in the interests of child safety and safety of the infant vaccination program.

Elderly Beijingers miss out on free flu vaccine

by Michael Woodhead

Most elderly people in Beijing are failing to take advantage of the government’s program of free influenza vaccine each winter, research shows.

Only 44% of people over 60 had influenza vaccination during the seasons from 2008 to 2011, according to a survey of almost 2500 elderly Beijing residents published in the BMJ Open journal this week.

The vaccination rates over three seasons were consistently below 50%, which is well below the WHO target of 75% for annual seasonal influenza vaccination for the elderly, said Dr Zheng Yang and co-researchers from the Institute for Infectious Disease and Endemic Disease Control at the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).

The low uptake of flu vaccine occurred despite the government policy to offer the vaccine free of charge to all vulnerable populations including older people via community health centres, the researchers said.

Analysis of the figures showed that flu vaccination was more likely among people living in rural areas of Beijing, people with a lower level of education and those who perceived themselves to be unwell.

“Influenza vaccine coverage in Beijing still remains suboptimal. Further work needs to be undertaken to ascertain whether the method of distributing the vaccine is adequate and whether health professionals are appropriately promoting the vaccine,” the researchers concluded.

“ Education efforts should continue to highlight the need for the vaccine among individuals who are at risk from the disease and its associated complications,” they added.

Read the full study at: BMJ Open