Hong Kong’s commercial landlords poised for bonanza from China’s vaccine safety woes as parents flock south for jabs

Angela Young had the shock of her life when China’s drugs regulator revealed that the company which produced the two vaccine shots for her 16-month-old baby also supplied 400,520 doses of substandard DPT combination vaccines to children elsewhere in the country.

Alarmed, the Beijing legal clerk consulted two agencies that specialised in arranging offshore health care, and came up with a plan: she would take her boy to Hong Kong in October when he is 18 months old for four vaccine shots. He will receive another three injections in April when he is two, plus the two combination DPT doses to protect the toddler against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus.

The package of vaccines will cost Young HK$5,400 (US$688), not including the air fare, hotel lodgings and food for her son and mother, which will add up to 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) in total. For the first-time mother, that amount is well worth it.

“Nothing even comes close to my biggest concern, which is the effectiveness of vaccines in China,” she said during an interview in Beijing.

Young is not alone. Families throughout China have been incensed since April by a scandal involving several of the biggest producers of vaccines and drugs that have been found to be substandard.

The loss of confidence in China’s health care could turn out to be a bonanza for Hong Kong, where 76 per cent of the 58.5 million visitors to Hong Kong last year hailed from north of the border. according to the city’s tourism data.

Most came to shop for products and services that are either unavailable, or which cost multiple times more, on the mainland. Vaccines are the latest additions to that shopping list, on top of infant formula, residential property, insurance and wealth management products.