(Weibo) One of the vaccine advertisements posted on WeChat, China's most popular social media app. (Weibo) Previous NextChinese authorities have warned against the illegal sale on social media platform WeChat of products claiming to be vaccines undergoing phase 3 trials. The ads sparked widespread criticism on Weibo, another Chinese social media app, and comments with variations of the hashtag SellingVaccinesOnWeChatIsIllegal were viewed more than 20 million times. Sinovac and Sinopharm both warned the public against the "scam", though they didn't clarify if the products sold on WeChat were authentic. It's not clear how many — if any — of the products were sold and the ads have since been removed from the Chinese social media app.

Source: The Standard August 23, 2020 11:15 UTC