(cri)
Updated: 2007-08-02 15:31

Two more criminal suspects, who were involved in selling fake vaccines produced by an underground fake drug syndicate from northeast China's Heilongjiang province, have been arrested and sent back to Harbin by police on Tuesday.

The notorious fake drug gang who maneuvered underground production of some 67 types of counterfeit drugs using forged packages of 53 legitimate pharmaceutical companies was uncovered and destroyed by police later last month. Fifteen members of the gang have been arrested and 10,000 doses of fake antirabic vaccine, 20,250 bottles of fake injections used to treat cardiovascular disease and 211 bottles of fake blood protein were seized.

The Heilongjiang Morning Post reported on the website northeast. cn on Thursday that the two suspects, surnamed He and Pan, began selling counterfeit antirabic vaccines in southwest Sichuan Province in March of this year. They bought fake drugs, including counterfeit antirabic vaccines, from the busted fake drug gang from northeastern Heilongjiang province.

The Heilongjiang Food And Drug Administration has so far proved that some 198 people from Mudanjing city in the province had used such fake vaccines earlier this year. At the same time, police of Sichuan Province have also detected that 29 other patients in Luxian County there have also become victims of the fake vaccines, most of whom were children of 2 to 14 years old.

China's State Food and Drug Administration, the country's top food and drug quality watchdog, had earlier sent its special envoy to Harbin and reviewed the case on Wednesday morning. The envoy has demanded relevant departments to thoroughly investigate the "flow" of the fake drugs around the country and take immediate and tough moves to eradicate them.

A contagious and deadly disease, rabies threatens many people's lives and kills a large number of others every year. People must inject an antirabic vaccine within 24 hours once bitten by a rabies-infected dog. Naturally, a fake vaccine has little or diverse effect in stopping the rabies virus, resulting in possible deaths.

Reports say local health departments in Sichuan are paying close attention to people who unknowingly used the fake drug.