BEIJING - Chinese police have arrested 15 members of a crime ring that made and sold fake medicines, a Chinese newspaper said on Monday amid a domestic and global confidence crisis about the country's food and drug safety.

Police in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang seized more than 30,000 phials of fake vaccination medicine, including rabies vaccines and a plasma-based protein injection, the People's Daily said.

Much of it was made with starch and water.

The 15 are accused of buying the bogus medicines and wrapping them with forged packages of 53 legitimate pharmaceutical companies, the newspaper said.

They are suspected of selling the drugs, all widely used and spanning 67 categories, with counterfeit authorisation documents, the People's Daily said, adding some hospitals and individuals had used the drugs.

While the starch and water were not toxic, they could be deadly for patients who needed proper treatment, the People's Daily said. Also the fake plasma-based drug could cause "serious adverse reactions".

"Fake rabies vaccines are not only unable to prevent the disease but could delay treatment and even threaten life," the newspaper said.

Heilongjiang authorities had asked 15 other Chinese provinces to investigate the authenticity of 38 batches of drugs and 15 batches of vaccines the group might have sold, the People's Daily said.

China executed Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, for corruption and dereliction of duty earlier this month.

Under Zheng's watch, dozens of Chinese died of fake or substandard drugs which easily made it to the market thanks to a graft-ridden regulatory system.

The central government has vowed to clean up the sector and to beef up food safety and product quality after problematic Chinese exports ranging from seafood to toothpaste brought the issue under the international spotlight.