Hong Kong ombudsman accuses authorities of inadequate monitoring of high-demand vaccines
- Ombudsman accuses Food and Health Bureau and Department of Health of lack of showing any effort in explaining their monitoring mechanism for vaccines
- It urges the government to ensure transparency of information once Covid-19 jabs become available in private market and also prevent the spread of counterfeit shots
Hong Kong’s ombudsman has accused authorities of inadequate monitoring of high-demand vaccines following an investigation into their quality, after fake human papillomavirus (HPV) shots were found at two clinics in 2019.
The findings prompted the watchdog to urge the government to ensure transparency of information once Covid-19 vaccines became available in the private market and also prevent any counterfeit or parallel imported vaccines from entering the local market.
“Investigation by the office has found that for those vaccines that are in general less prone to parallel import or counterfeiting, the government has already put in place a quite comprehensive monitoring mechanism for such vaccines provided by private healthcare facilities,” a statement from the office said.
Lab tests confirm HPV vaccines seized from two private medical centres are fake
“Nevertheless, for vaccines with excessive demand, the authorities’ monitoring mechanism had been inadequate in the past,” the statement said. “Fortunately, the Department of Health and the Customs and Excise Department took prompt action in the wake of the incidents involving nine-valent HPV vaccines, conducted investigations at the private healthcare facilities involved and made arrests,” it added.
But the ombudsman also accused the Food and Health Bureau and the Department of Health of lack of showing any effort in explaining their monitoring mechanism for vaccines provided to private health care facilities or to provide stepped up measures following the counterfeit incidents.
It also said the Department of Health had not taken into account the vaccine’s supply and demand in its risk assessment factors for its market surveillance mechanism. The ombudsman found the department lacked the authority to investigate private clinics solely on the grounds of investigating counterfeit vaccines.
HPV vaccines offer protection against the human papillomavirus, which increases the risk of, among several other diseases, cervical cancer – the seventh most common cancer among local women in 2016. That year, 510 cervical cancer cases were reported.
In July of 2019, health authorities and customs had in a joint operation arrested five people and seized more than 200 boxes of counterfeit HPV vaccines from two clinics in Kwun Tong and Tsim Sha Tsui, but lab tests confirmed they did not contain hazardous substances.
Separately, the office said last year it had also received complaints about parallel imported and counterfeit vaccines, which Ombudsman Winnie Chiu Wai-yin attributed to a rise in the demand for the vaccines.
Customs seize 76 boxes of suspected counterfeit HPV vaccines in Hong Kong
The surge in demand had mostly come from visitors from mainland China. In 2019, hundreds of people who had got HPV vaccines, mostly women from the mainland, swamped a private clinic in Hong Kong and demanded a refund after it was claimed the doses arrived via unauthorised channels.
The Department of Health and customs have since implemented measures such as conducting inspections on licensed wholesale dealers who had previously imported unregistered nine-valent HPV vaccines for re-export. Health authorities are also referring already issued import and export permits to customs for post-shipment verification.
They are also proactively investigating dubious private clinics, while the ombudsman said the number of complaints had dropped and no further illegal activity had been found. But it noted the number of visitors from the mainland had also fallen since mid-2019, which it said could have also contributed to the drop in complaints.
The watchdog urged the government to further monitor the new measures as well as to improve its efforts to release information to the public if there were serious incidents involving pharmaceutical products. The ombudsman also said information about newly introduced vaccines should be provided in a timely manner.
The Department of Health said it would implement the ombudsman’s recommendations, adding it had already taken steps to ensure the quality of vaccines in Hong Kong.
The measures include working with the sole supplier for HPV vaccines on implementing a track and trace system using blockchain technology, special clearance arrangements for unregistered HPV and Covid-19 vaccines that are imported into or exported out of Hong Kong, and enhancing public education on both the HPV and Covid-19 vaccines.
