BEIJING - CHINESE police are hunting a man suspected of selling a fake diabetes medicine that killed two people, state media reported on Thursday, in the latest scandal to blight the nation's chaotic drug industry.

More than 15,000 bottles of the bogus drug have already been seized across China, Xinhua news agency and other media reported.

Authorities first discovered it in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where they seized nearly 10,200 bottles.

The real medicine is normally used to help control blood sugar levels in people with type two diabetes, the most common form of the disease.

But the fake version contained six times the normal dose of glibenclamide, Xinhua said, without explaining why the levels were so high.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for a 39-year-old man from northeast China named Li Dong, who is believed to have sold the drug nationwide, Xinhua said.

Five other suspects have been arrested in Xinjiang, where the two patients died last month. Nine other people there who took the drug remain in hospital.

More than 5,000 bottles of the medicine have been found in two other Chinese provinces recently, although there have been no reports of people falling sick or dying from it, according to the state-run China National Radio service.

A preliminary investigation found the fake medicine was not made in Xinjiang, but authorities have failed to find the source, according to Xinhua.

Bans and recalls of drug products are common in China due to widespread safety problems in the nation's chaotic, under-regulated and often corrupt health industry.

The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed in 2007 for taking bribes in exchange for product safety licences.

In another recent scandal, Chinese-made herbal remedies killed at least four people in October last year. -- AFP