Hepatitis B carriers offered false hope of beating health checks

Hepatitis B carriers are being targeted by an online scam offering a drug that its sellers claim can help them beat tests for detecting the virus.

Mainland media reported that the drug, advertised as 'a hepatitis B health test-cheating drug', could be deadly. The reports said that, since January, a message had appeared in internet chatrooms offering to supply medication to put the hepatitis B virus 'to sleep' for several hours so that a carrier could obtain a negative result in health tests for school admission or employment.

Websites of two companies which allegedly sold the drug, Shanghai's Longcheng Pharmaceutical Company and Zhuxingkang Health Science Trade and Development, which is of unspecified origin, still advertise the drug, although their telephone numbers appear to have been disconnected.

The drug is also available for 136 yuan a dose through a blog registered in the name of 'Long Deyong', who claims to work for Longcheng. The blog provides two bank accounts in Mr Long's name but no other contact details.

Mr Liao, 28, a hepatitis B carrier fired by his Suzhou employer last year because of the condition, said he would have bought the drug if a relative, a doctor, had not told him such a drug was impossible.

'To get a job we need to pass the health test,' Mr Liao said. 'And we need a job in order to survive.'