China's vaccine scandal continued to grow Wednesday as the total number of pharmaceutical companies involved in the case rose to 13.
The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) on Wednesday announced the names of another four companies that allegedly sold vaccines to an unlicensed and unauthorized third party. The administration urged local authorities to investigate these companies to discover where the vaccines had been sold and distributed by Friday.
The CFDA also confirmed the identities of 12 people involved in the illegal trade.
The scandal has revealed significant problems in the vaccine distribution system, Wu Zhen, deputy director of the CFDA, told media on Wednesday while attending the 2016 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Wu vowed to identify and fix supervision loopholes and severely punish wrongdoers.
Authorities have attempted to ease public concerns about vaccination, which still permeate social media.
National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) spokesperson Xiong Huang commented on the vaccine scandal on Wednesday, saying that the country has not seen an increase in suspected cases of adverse effects following immunization, Xinhua reported.
Under China's immunization system, the illegally traded vaccines involved in the scandal belong to the secondary category of vaccinations, which are not required by the government. Procurement of the 14 types of mandatory vaccines is well-regulated by authorities, and the administration of mandatory vaccinations is conducted by disease control or health departments, Wang Guoqiang, deputy head of the NHFPC, told media on Wednesday while attending the Boao Forum.
"More efforts should be made in terms of regulation and supervision [over the vaccination system]," Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
"Each link should be supervised by relevant authorities on a regular basis, especially where the vaccines come from," Zeng said.
The vaccine scandal involved $88 million worth of improperly stored vaccines that were distributed to 18 provinces and regions, and it has prompted furious backlash from parents across the country.
In February, police in East China's Shandong Province announced that they had arrested a mother and daughter for selling 25 kinds of vaccines in bulk, including inoculations for polio, mumps, rabies, hepatitis B, encephalitis and meningococcal diseases. Though many of the vaccines were purchased from licensed manufacturers, they were not refrigerated during redistribution as required, leaving many to fear that the vaccines have been compromised.
Three pharmaceutical companies in Shandong Province alone are under investigation for possible involvement in the scandal. Police in Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces have also detained suspects in the scandal, Xinhua reported.