Police departments in Jiangsu, Beijing and Shandong have arrested more than 80 people involved in producing more than 3,000 fake Covid-19 vaccine doses, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Xinhua said China’s Ministry of Public Security is investigating crimes related to manufacturing and selling of counterfeit vaccines “and the illegal practice of medicine and fraud under the guise of the vaccines.”
Police found that since September 2020, those involved “have been making huge profits by fulfilling saline solution into injectors to process and make fake coronavirus vaccines and selling them at a higher price,” the agency said.
China has been vaccinating its population with shots from two companies, Sinovac and Sinopharm, and both have also been rolled out in other countries, including Turkey.
Sinovac has stood by its vaccine, even as some countries have placed it under review and paused rollouts, but scientists have called on the company to release more data.