VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Health on December 20 asked the World Health Organization (WHO) and the manufacturer to verify the safety of the vaccine Quinvaxem and polio, after three babies in Nghe An province died after vaccination.




The Preventive Medicine Agency has directed the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, the National Children's Hospital in collaboration with the Nghe An Department of Health to investigate the three deaths.

Nghe An has also stopped using the batch of Quinvaxem vaccine and polio which was injected to the three children and sent vaccine samples to the National Institute for Vaccine and Medical Products Inspection to test.

According to the Preventive Medicine Agency, there is no evidence of the relevance of vaccines and immunization services to these deaths. The storage and transportation of the vaccines observed the regulations. The immunization staffs were trained in accordance with the rules.

On December 7, two 3-month-old babies in Chau Quang commune, Quy Hop district, Nghe An province, were vaccinated with Quinvaxem vaccine, dose 1 and took orally polio vaccine for the first time at the local health station. One of them died after 34 hours of vaccination, showing nothing unusual. The remaining baby had fever in the evening, reduced fever in the next day. On December 10 (66 hours after the injection), the baby died. The 3rd baby was injected with the vaccine on December 10, in Dong Hop commune, and died on December 12 (38 hours after the injection).

There are two types of "5 in 1" vaccines. One is called Quinvaxem of South Korea, preventing at the same time five diseases including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, Hib and hepatitis. This is the vaccine used in the expanded program on immunization. The second type is vaccine Pentaxim of France, to prevent diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio and Hib.

Compiled by Thu Ha