Chinese blood plasma ‘cleared’ as authorities give mixed messages on HIV contamination
- Batch that health commission said was contaminated is cleared by drug watchdog whose officials are being investigated over last year’s rabies vaccine scandal
- Shanghai regulator says it has recalled the batch and halted production at the company that produced it
Chinese authorities have made conflicting statements about human blood plasma treatments found to be contaminated with HIV, with the country’s drug watchdog saying it had cleared the treatments just a day after its national health authority announced they were faulty.
Inspectors from the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) said on Wednesday that samples they had examined from a batch of 12,229 bottles of intravenous immunoglobulin were free of HIV and hepatitis B and C.
The administration’s clearance of the batch, produced by state-owned Shanghai Xinxing Pharmaceutical Company, contradicted a notice from the National Health Commission on Tuesday announcing its contamination and warning hospitals to immediately suspend use of the treatments.
The provincial health commission and disease control centre in eastern China’s Jiangxi province had detected traces of HIV in the batch, although the disease control centre told The Beijing News on Wednesday that it had not yet discovered any cases of patients having contracted HIV.
The batch of 50ml bottles are due to expire in June 2021, a source from the state food and drug regulator told the China Business Journal.