Vaccine ruled out as cause of deaths after inoculation

HONG KONG: City health officials have rejected statements alleging that human swine flu vaccine has been responsible for more than 100 deaths.

The vaccine had been ruled out as the cause of death among several recent vaccine recipients including a 7-year-old boy who died Monday in Taiwan after receiving the vaccine, Center for Health Protection (CHP) controller Thomas Tsang said yesterday.

"The Taiwanese health authorities conducted an expert investigation into the boy's case and they concluded that the vaccination was unrelated to the death of the boy and that the boy probably died of some other underlying illness," Tsang said.

The boy's father, a gynecologist from Taichung, said his son had no prior health problems and developed rashes all over his body after receiving the shot according to reports. His father intends to sue Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control.

There have also been 90 deaths in Japan among recent recipients of the vaccine, 21 deaths in the US, seven in the UK, and 25 in Germany.

"In all these cases, the human swine flu vaccine has been ruled out as the cause of death," Tsang said.

Responding to concerns from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority that the government's HK$129 per shot human swine flu vaccination subsidy would become a target of scams, because subsidy applicants and vaccine recipients were not being matched, Tsang said a new online system has been set up to flag irregularities, including double bookings by patients.

Tsang said such cases would be investigated, adding that vaccinated patients would still receive the subsidy no matter the outcome of investigations.

He added people who receive the shot may be contacted to confirm their particulars if irregularities turn up.

According to a CHP spokesman, there have been 51 irregularities detected so far.

Since the launch of the vaccination program Monday, 15,467 people have received the shots.

To facilitate the vaccination program, a list of 917 private doctors enrolled in the subsidy scheme has been uploaded to the CHP's website.

The scheme covers chronic patients, pregnant women, children aged from six months to less than six years, the elderly and health care workers.

(HK Edition 12/24/2009 page1)