JAKARTA, July 18, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian parents enroll their children to get vaccinated at a health center in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 18, 2016. Indonesian government will have an organizational reshuffle within the country's food and drug monitoring agency after it saw a nationwide fake vaccine scandal. (Xinhua/Zulkarnain)
JAKARTA, July 15 (Xinhua)-- Indonesian government will have an organizational reshuffle within the country's food and drug monitoring agency after it saw a nationwide fake vaccine scandal.
"The president decided Thursday to have structural changes in the BPOM (Drug and Food Monitoring Agency), and have someone tasked to improve the agency,"said Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung in Jakarta on Friday.
He didn't elaborate on further details, but said the action is expected to prevent the incident from ever happening again in the nation where counterfeit drugs are widespread.
On Thursday, the government already revealed the names of 14 health facilities that were allegedly administering the fake boosters for diseases, including tetanus and tuberculosis, to their patients.
The case was put into spotlight after a major pharmaceutical company last month reported Indonesian authorities that some of its products had been counterfeited. It immediately received massive condemnation, with President Joko Widodo demanding the harshest punishment possible for this"extraordinary crime."
Police then uncovered a criminal syndicate accused of selling bogus vaccines for more than a decade to health clinics across the vast archipelago of 250 million people. At the time, the BPOM confiscated vaccines from nearly 30 health facilities as police arrested 16 suspects.
While no deaths from such vaccines have come up, Indonesian Health Minister Nina Moeloek asked parents to seek medical advice from doctors, and even considering re-innoculating their children as the counterfeit vaccines contained a mix of intravenous fluids and antibiotics.
