About 3,000 yuan on the platform about vaccines. Some consumers waited until the agreed time and still did not receive the
9-valent HPV vaccine. Why is it “difficult to find a shot”
"Nine prices have been hit, flowers have been returned, and garages have been bought..." On various social platforms, inoculation of the nine prices HPV vaccine has become a popular "check-in" goal in life.
The nine-valent HPV vaccine is sought after, "a single shot is hard to find," and the vaccine platform has become the choice of more and more people.
On August 19, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that the Yomiao platform was selling high-priced vaccine packages, but many consumers waited beyond the agreed time and did not sign up.
Nine-valent HPV vaccine is hard to find
About Miao intermediary is three thousand yuan higher than the original price
99.7% of cervical cancer cases are related to HPV infection.
HPV vaccines are divided into bivalent, quadrivalent, and 9-valent vaccines to prevent two, four and nine common human papillomaviruses respectively.
Most of this type of vaccination is in the vaccination clinics of hospitals, community health service centers and qualified private medical institutions.
A reporter from the Beijing Youth Daily called more than ten immunization clinics in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Among them, eight community health service centers were busy, and the community health service centers that could be reached all indicated that there was no nine-valent vaccine in the near future.
The staff of Sanlitun Community Health Service Center told reporters that the nine-valent vaccine is applied for once a month, and the quantity applied for is difficult to guarantee, and there has been no vaccine for two months recently.
Beijing Huaxin Hospital also does not currently have a nine-valent vaccine. The staff recommends to pay attention to the public account of the health care department of the hospital. When a vaccine is available, the public account will be notified and an online appointment will be opened.
These vaccines, which are difficult to obtain offline, are marked with the word "in stock" on the e-commerce sales interface of some of the vaccine intermediaries.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily saw in a parenting Taobao flagship store that the "Nine-price HPV Cervical Cancer Vaccine Reservation Service" is sold in more than 800 pieces a month. The Beijing Nine-Price Vaccine Package includes the "Beijing Nine-Price HPV+ Gynecological Q&A". There are two options of spot "Beijing nine-valent hpv vaccine expected from January to February".
As a consumer, a reporter from the Beijing Youth Daily consulted its customer service. The customer service said that even in a spot city, the injection is expected to take about one month, subject to hospital scheduling and order order, and cannot promise specific injection time.
In other words, whether it is pre-sale or spot, you need to wait, and the customer service can't give an answer for the specific waiting time.
Even if there is a waiting period, the spot vaccine is 1,000 yuan higher than the vaccine package that is expected to be vaccinated in January and February.
According to a reporter from the Beijing Youth Daily, one shot of the nine-valent vaccine in public channels requires an injection fee of 1,298 yuan plus about 25 yuan, and it costs less than 4,000 yuan for three shots, but the intermediary sold a high price of 6,000 to 7,000 yuan.
Buy a high-priced intermediary package
Can't be hit even if it is overdue?
When it comes to the nine-valent HPV vaccine, the interviewee Ms. Peng's words have obviously increased, “During the epidemic, it is more difficult to wait for the injection, and it is difficult to arrange it in public. I just want to spend more money to exclude private.”
According to Ms. Peng, in April this year, she bought a nine-price HPV vaccine package at a parenting flagship store. At that time, the product description stated that “the injection is expected to be administered in 3-4 months”.
"I regretted it not long after I bought it. I don't understand why I still have to wait since I bought the vaccine at an intermediary at a high price." Ms. Peng said.
But what she didn't expect was that no one contacted her until the scheduled injection time passed at the beginning, and the attitude of the customer service was to repeatedly express that the vaccine was nervous and would rush to give feedback.
Ms. Peng was a little helpless: "I have bought a high-priced vaccine, but cannot be responsible for the goods and services sold on the promised date! Four months have been delayed for nothing!"
And encounters like Ms. Peng are not rare.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily conducted a search on the Black Cat complaint platform using HPV as a keyword. There were 352 results. The complaints included almost all platforms that provide vaccine services, including Baidu Health, Pinduoduo, Jingdong, Tmall, Taobao, and In their complaints, Rainbow Doctors, Olive Branch Health, and other intermediaries about seedlings mostly asked for refunds or urged to arrange vaccination times. Some consumers even pointed out in their complaints that the vaccination hospitals arranged by the intermediary were not qualified.
The consumer stated that the appointment of HPV vaccine in private hospitals with Rainbow Doctor was done in a clinic that could not be found on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He consulted with the Jiangsu Provincial Health Commission and said that the clinic was only approved in March this year. Limited to the new crown vaccine, HPV cannot be used, and a 5% handling fee will be charged for applying for a refund.
There are currently only three companies in China
Cervical cancer vaccine approved
Why is the nine-valent cervical cancer vaccine so popular?
According to data from the National Food and Drug Administration, currently, only three domestic companies, Merck & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, and my country Wantai Canghai, have been approved for cervical cancer vaccines. Among them, the nine-valent and four-valent vaccines are only produced by Merck, which is the agent of Zhifei Biotech.
According to data from the China Institute for Food and Drug Control, the number of HPV vaccines issued in my country was 1.46 million in 2017, 7 million in 2018, and about 10.64 million in 2019. In the first half of 2020, the number of approved HPV vaccines reached 6,189,700.
Based on 356 million women of the right age and 3 needles per person, the market gap exceeds 1 billion.
According to Zhifei's 2020 annual report, the number of batches of nine-valent HPV vaccines issued in 2019 was 3,324,100; the number of batches issued for nine-valent HPV vaccines in 2020 was 5.0664 million.
Although there is an increasing trend, according to the vaccination procedure of three doses per person for the age-appropriate vaccination group in China, it is still a drop in the bucket, and there is still a big gap between the supply of vaccines and the actual demand.
In the face of the “hard to find a single shot” of the nine-valent vaccine, industry insiders have analyzed that the reason why the nine-valent HPV vaccine is so sought after is largely affected by the herd mentality of the vaccinators.
The Internet's "marketing" of vaccine effects, the urgency brought by age restrictions, and the psychological effects of the scarcity of vaccines themselves have made the nine-valent vaccine more "sought after" than the bivalent and tetravalent vaccines.
However, the World Health Organization clearly pointed out in 2017: Existing evidence shows that from the perspective of public health, bivalent, quadrivalent and ninth-valent vaccines have no immunogenicity, efficacy and effectiveness in preventing HPV-related types 16 and 18 of cervical cancer. Differences, all three vaccines can prevent most related cancers.
hint
Expert: Bivalent and quadrivalent vaccines are equally effective
Disease prevention experts also reminded that the ultimate goal of vaccination is to prevent cervical cancer. If there is no nine-valent vaccine that is in short supply, you may also consider bivalent and quadrivalent vaccines for early vaccination and early prevention.
Professor Zhao Fanghui of the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences said in an interview that there are 14 types of high-risk human papillomaviruses that cause cervical cancer. The most common types are 16 and 18, these two types. Will cause more than 80% of cervical cancer to occur.
Both bivalent and quadrivalent vaccines cover 16 and 18 types, and the nine-valent vaccine has an additional 5 types.
Two-price, four-price, and nine-price may sound very different from the numbers, but in fact, the difference is between 10% and 15%. Inoculation with two-price can avoid cervical cancer with high probability.
This group of articles / our reporter Zhang Xin, intern reporter / Zhao Sijia