China says faulty vaccines not cause of children’s deaths
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China’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday faulty vaccines were not to blame for the deaths of four children in northern Shanxi province, after a domestic newspaper pointed the finger of blame at substandard vaccinations.
China has been beset by a series of product safety scandals over the past few years. At least six children died in 2008 after drinking milk contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine.
In 2003 and 2005, three Chinese children suffered severe brain damage after being vaccinated against Japanese encephalitis. Their parents blamed a substandard vaccine, something the government denied.
In the latest case, the China Economic Times reported last month that four children died and at least 74 became sick in the poor inland province of Shanxi, after getting vaccinated against illnesses including encephalitis, hepatitis B and rabies.
The problems arose when the vaccines were spoiled by the summer heat, the report said.
The Health Ministry immediately began an investigation, but spokesman Deng Haihua said bad vaccines were not to blame for the four deaths.
One child died of encephalitis, one of epilepsy and the other two deaths were suspected of a combination of encephalitis and respiratory failure, Deng told a news conference.
Rare complications can occur with any vaccine and it is usually hard to pin down the reason, which may relate to the quality of the vaccine or the person’s own immune system.
Proper storage and refrigeration requirements for many types of vaccines sometimes present a problem when they need to be transported across vast distances.
China, often called the world’s factory, is struggling to convince a sceptical domestic and global audience it has won a battle to improve safety standards after scandals involving everything from pet food and dumplings to cough syrup.
In 2007, China executed former drug and food safety chief Zheng Xiaoyu. His misdeeds led to approval of many medicines that should have been blocked or taken off the market, including six fake drugs, a court found.
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BEIJING (Reuters)
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