A closed door meeting was convened on July 24 by the Ministry of Health to discuss the deaths of three babies after Hepatitis B Vaccination in Huong Hoa District in the central province of Quang Tri.
The three hour meeting was presided over by Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, Minister of Health, who discussed related issues with the scientific council.
Later the Minister told reporters that the ministry would also now rope in the police to run a thorough investigation into the incident. The ministry has promised harsh penalties on individuals and the hospital if regulations were not followed in the above incident.
Nguyen Tran Hien, President of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and Head of the National Program on Immunization, said he and other experts in the ministry’s mission team believed there was a suspicious substance in the vaccine administered to the three newborns as they had turned blue and had difficulty in breathing within 10 minutes of the shot.
Moreover, medical workers discovered internal bleeding and inflammation in the lungs, heart, liver and kidney from autopsy reports.
Because of lack of sufficient funds, Vietnam is still using outdated vaccines that are no longer in use in developed countries and long since abandoned by the World Health Organization.
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