China’s best known investigative reporters have sparked a controversial case over whether the Centre’s setback in placing order for the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine to the China-based manufacturer would jeopardize the JE eradication program across the country. The manufacturer needs at least six-months to deliver the order and the first stock of the vaccine would reach only in August-September—the middle of the disease season.

China’s Health Ministry is expected to look into the matter at the earliest.

Chen Taoan, the former Chief Spokesman of the Shanxi Province Disease Control and Prevention Center, who is still on the center’s staff, said on Thursday that, a Senior Official there was relieved of all responsibilities at the end of last year because of improprieties related to the vaccines.

Mr. Chen said that the center, which is part of the Shanxi Health Department, had required all hospitals in the province to buy vaccines at sharp prices. To check conformity by the hospitals, the center put a sticker on each package of vaccine to show that it had been standardized.

Investigations carried out in the West have found that health problems for which vaccines have been blamed have sometimes confirmed to be unrelated concurrence.

According to the World Health Organization data, 99 percent Chinese children get all three doses of polio vaccine.