BEIJING: China sentenced two key suspects in an out-of-date immunizations scandal, a local court said Tuesday, in a case which fuelled public concern about vaccine safety and sparked outrage about official delays in revealing details. The Jinan Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Pang Hongwei, one of the key players in the scheme, to 19 years in prison for illegal business practices, according to a statement posted Tuesday on its verified Weibo social media account. Sun helped in accounting, receiving and sending vaccines, and making bank transfers from September 2014 to April 2015, the court said. Although the two suspects were arrested in April 2015, the vaccine scandal was not publicized until nearly a year later, arousing public fury over authorities’ delay. Premier Li Keqiang acknowledged in an earlier statement that the vaccine incident had provoked “great concern and exposed the existence of many regulatory loopholes”.

Source: Manila Times January 24, 2017 09:07 UTC