China sent health experts to investigate a drug maker yesterday to see if several recent deaths of babies were related to a vaccine they received in a government immunization program.
A team of government investigators was sent to Biokangtai, a drug maker based in the southern city of Shenzhen, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said, amid growing public concern about the safety of the vaccine.
The probe was launched after provincial and health authorities separately reported that since last month, about a half-dozen babies died shortly after receiving a hepatitis B vaccine made by Biokangtai.
One case has been ruled out while the others are still being investigated.
Calls to Biokangtai’s Shenzhen headquarters were disconnected after a few rings.
In a statement earlier this month, the company said it was confident of the safety of its products and that the deaths could be caused by underlying diseases that coincidentally began showing symptoms after the vaccinations.
“Coincidental diseases arise the most easily and are the easiest to misinterpret,” the statement on Biokangtai’s Web site said.
A senior government expert on diseases said vaccine-related deaths could be due to coincidence, but that Biokangtai was not in a position to make an objective assessment.
“We should not treat the company’s statement like a conclusion,” Zeng Guang (曾光), chief epidemiologist with the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a phone interview. “They may be trying to protect their self-interest. Or they may have a lot of confidence in their product.”
Hepatitis B is a chronic liver infection that is spread through the blood or bodily fluids of infected people. It can cause liver inflammation and jaundice.
The vaccine was given to children free of charge as part of the government’s national immunization program. Chinese health authorities suspended the use of Biokangtai’s hepatitis B vaccine on Friday after the first deaths of babies were reported.
Four babies reportedly died in the southern province of Guangdong, although one was said to have died from pneumonia. The National Health and Family Planning Commission reported that two babies in Hunan Province and another in Sichuan had also died in a similar way.
One more child in Sichuan died on Monday, less than 24 hours after receiving a hepatitis B vaccine made by a different company, Xinhua news agency said.
Autopsies were being conducted and results were expected in a few weeks, reports said.
Public confidence in Chinese health authorities and the country’s drug safety regime is shaky at best, though improvements have been made in recent years since government agencies withheld information about the spread of SARS and bird flu.
Concerns over vaccine safety have surfaced in recent years after media reports of problems with vaccines for encephalitis, hepatitis B and other diseases, and though the health ministry said the vaccines had been improperly stored, they were unrelated to subsequent illnesses that were reported.
Zeng urged the public not to panic, saying that in general Chinese vaccines were safe and that more people would die if everyone refused inoculations.
“If the public refuses to be vaccinated, or if they try to change the vaccination procedures, the consequence will be extremely bad,” Zeng said. “Instead of several deaths, it will cause tens of thousands of deaths.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique