A FORMER Vietnamese deputy health minister was sentenced to four years in jail over his involvement in a fake cancer drug scandal that dates back to 2014.
The Hanoi People's Court on Thursday found Truong Quoc Cuong guilty of "negligence that results in serious consequences" and handed him the jail sentence.
Cuong was found guilty of violations that allowed a medical company to import the fake drug into Vietnam.
According to a Vn Express report, the court also banned him from holding any positions in the field of medicine for three years after he had served his sentence.
In his defense during the trial, the deputy minister blamed his actions on being "overworked" and cited a lack of infrastructure.
The court also sentenced the former chairman of the management board of Vietnam Pharma JSC Nguyen Minh Hung to 18 years in jail for manufacturing and trading in counterfeit medicines for treatment or prevention of diseases.
He had previously already been sentenced to 17 years jail and with the additional jail time, his cumulative sentence will now be 30 years, the maximum allowed under Vietnamese law.
Twelve others who were implicated in the case received jail terms between two and 20 years.
The court decisions are the latest development in the counterfeit drug case that had rocked Vietnam and it involved Vietnam Pharma and the fake drug branded Health 2000 Canada.
According to the facts of the case, Hung and Vo Manh Cuong, director of shipping firm H&C, had struck a deal to purchase 838,000 packets of the fake drug Health 2000 Canada, worth over VND54 billion (US$2.3 million), to be imported into Vietnam.
Both Hung and Manh Cuong had altered the drug's info, price and logo to cheat authorities.
During the trial, prosecutors said the case was "especially severe" as it concerned fake drugs that were supposed to cure people. Many of the drugs were supposedly antibiotics for severe conditions.
The prosecutors also said that their actions have severely impacted the state's health care policies and the reputation of the medicine field.
They proposed that the Ministry of Health re-examine its drug approval procedures, especially for foreign drugs and further investigations should look into any violations that might have been committed by customs authorities.