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Download Police have detained 17 people on suspicion of making and selling counterfeit drugs and vaccines. The suspects were arrested during raids on four bases in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Hunan, Anhui, and Henan provinces, the Ministry of Public Security said on Saturday. About 16,000 bottles of fake medicine were seized, including copies of albumin, immune globulin and the rabies vaccine, as well as equipment to make counterfeit drugs. The drugs seized had a total market value of more than 20 million yuan ($3.28 million), the ministry said. Police said the suspects had sold 10,800 doses of the fake rabies vaccine to hospitals in Shandong province since 2009. The vaccine was sold at 1 yuan per dose - patients had to pay 26 yuan. The ministry did not say which hospitals had bought the vaccine, nor did it say whether patients had been harmed by using the fake medicine. It is unclear how the suspects managed to sell fake products as vaccine management is strict. Police are cooperating with the China Food and Drug Administration to trace and recall fake medicines that were sold, the ministry said. According to Saturday's statement, police found that since May 2017, two suspects, identified as Liu and Zhou from Changsha, capital of Hunan, had bought empty drug bottles and packaging materials to use for the fake medicines. The suspects allegedly cleaned the bottles with tap water, filled them with dyed distilled water and resold them under a brand of a Shanghai pharmaceuticals company. | 
