HA NOI (VNS)— Three new-borns died after being vaccinated against hepatitis B at the Huong Hoa General Hospital in central Quang Tri Province on Saturday.
The Quang Tri Provincial Health Department director, Tran Van Thanh, said the three new-borns, weighing from 2.8 to 3.4kg, were born healthy.
Around 30 minutes after being vaccinated under the National Expanded Immunisation Programme (EPI), they had signs of breathing difficulties. They did not survive, though doctors did their best to save them.
The province still had around 1,000 doses of hepatitis B vaccine that belonged to two vaccine lots (V-GB 020812E and V-GB 030812E) provided by the Company for Vaccine and Biological Products 1.
The Quang Tri People’s Committee Permanent Deputy Chairman, Nguyen Duc Chinh, said that the cause of death has not been defined yet and the province had temporarily suspended the related vaccine lot for investigation and stopped vaccinating against hepatitis B for new-borns within their first 24 hours in the province.
The Provincial Health Department report said the hospital’s staff had performed correctly following the immunisation process. The new-borns could have been shocked by the vaccine.
An inspection team of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology yesterday went to Quang Tri to investigate the case.
The province’s Preventive Medicine Department Director Nguyen Xuan Tuong said that the department informed all medical units in the province.
Tuong added that besides the two suspended vaccine lots, the province has planned to continue to use other Hepatitis B vaccine lots for children. It means that new-borns would be given the vaccine 24 hours after being born until reaching one year old.
Previously, another vaccine under the EPI, Quinvaxem, also was suspended temporarily for safety reason in May. The Korean manufactured vaccine was confirmed safe by the World Health Organisation in June and would be resumed again in the EPI. — VNS
Đăng ký: VietNam News