Mainlanders are booking flights to Hong Kong to get vaccinations there for their children and sometimes for themselves. The offshore trips reflect growing anxiety about the quality and availability of vaccines in China after a much-publicized scandal.
Apart from Disneyland, shopping malls and pharmacies with infant milk powder, Hong Kong's popularity as a destination for mainland visitors has taken on a new dimension — vaccinations.
Families seeking inoculations in Hong Kong cite the shortage of certain vaccines on the mainland and distrust in the quality of those available here after a vaccine scandal in March.
Vaccination tourism may be curtailed now.
The World Health Organization, headed by a former health secretary of Hong Kong, said it's really not necessary for parents to seek vaccinations in Hong Kong because the general quality of domestically produced vaccines is trustworthy.
Infant inoculations aren't the only motivation for mainlanders seeking vaccinations in Hong Kong. Many women are seeking vaccinations against HPV, human papillomavirus, which can cause uterine and other cancers.
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