And now let’s take a look back at how this vaccination crisis has developed over the past month.
In early December, three infants in central China’s Hunan province fell seriously ill after receiving hepatitis B vaccines. Two of them later died... On December 13th...China’s food and drug administration opened an investigation and suspended the use of two batches of the vaccine produced by the company BioKangtai.
The following week, two more suspicious infant deaths were reported in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces... On December 20th, Chinese authorities announced a ban on all hepatitis B vaccines produced by BioKangtai.
Four days later, health authorities took over control of the vaccine’s entire distribution chain... On January 2nd, two other major Hepatitis B vaccine manufacturers in China halted production after failing to meet the government’s new quality standards.