A three-month-old baby girl died on Wednesday, hours after she was administered a dose of pentavalent vaccine at a Chennai Corporation health post in Otteri.
According to Otteri police, Ramarao of Mettupalayam had taken his daughter Tanujasree to the health centre in Vadima Nagar around 9.30 a.m, along with his wife, for her second dose of pentavalent vaccine.
The staff at the health post administered the injection to 17 infants, including Tanujasree, on Wednesday.
After returning home, Tanujasree became restless and began crying. By 11.30 a.m., the infant lost consciousness following which her parents rushed her back to the health post.
The staff there checked the child and informed her parents that she was in a serious condition. Ramarao and his wife rushed their baby girl to the Institute of Child Health in Egmore where she failed to respond to treatment and died a few hours later.
When contacted, Chennai Corporation officials said the cause of the infant’s death would be known only after a post-mortem was conducted on Thursday.
Family welfare officials suspect that the child could have died due to feeding aspiration — a condition when food or fluid accidentally enters the lungs resulting in choking.
Following standard procedure, Tanujasree was kept under observation for an hour after vaccination. Upon reaching home, she was breastfed at 11.15 a.m., about two hours after immunisation. Her condition deteriorated after that, officials said. They also cited two key reasons for their conclusion that pentavalent vaccine is not the cause of death.
“From the same vial, 16 other babies were immunised. The same batch of vaccine has been used to immunise many babies in the city. This is a tried-and-tested vaccine and there is no need for panic,” an official said.
Pentavalent vaccine protects children from diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis B, tetanus and Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b). It is a new addition to the immunisation programme in the country and is administered to children at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age.
The government introduced the vaccine in the State last December.
Keywords: pentavalent vaccine, Chennai infant death
Another death count added for pentavalent vaccine. This should not continue. Four children died in Kerala after pentavalent vaccine on Dec 14,2011, and many other deaths too. Pentavalent vaccine, Easyfive are removed from WHO list of prequalified vaccines already. Government is not a God. Its everybody responsibility to educate themselves. All the vaccine ingredients are extremely toxic in nature.
Mr Manivarmane, I strongly urge you and others who might hold views that this
is an untested vaccine to do a proper search on this matter. The Pentavalent
Vaccine is well tested and is also recommended by UNICEF. I think you have
totally misread the article. It clearly mentions that other infants too were
innoculated with the vaccine from the same vial and many more from the same
batch. All of them are fine. It is really unfortunate that an infant should pass,
but at first glance it doesn't look like a case of vaccine gone wrong. And for
heaven's sake please do not blame the government for everything that goes
wrong around you.
Clearly the nurse who administered the injection did not clear the syringe of the air buble. A case of untrained staff posing as a technician, something we are these days watching on television channels happening in UP and Bihar hospitals.
Our health policy is skewed when it comes to the technical staff in the medical centers all over the country. While we emphasize on the quality of Doctors and specialists, we compromise when it comes to the quality of technicians. The technician is the back bone of the medical institutions and on him depends the quality care.
The explanation from the health authority is not convincing. Is it possible for then to forward the clinical trials on Indian children regarding the safety of pentavalent vaccination. Has the clinical trials has been conducted as per the international standards.You can't just experiment a vaccine simply because the child is a thirl world citizen. I think every child has the right to a decent healthcare which is based on sound scientific evidence..This is not ayurveda or homeopathy where you can do experiment. It's modern medicine. So I want to see the data regarding all 4 phases of clinical trials conducted with the pentavalent vaccine on Indian children. If the govt. doesn't have the data or never conducted trials, they should immediately stop this vaccine and pay a large sum as compensation to all the children who had pentavalent vaccination.
Moms should be given training on how to care their children and on child psychology. I guess most mums are immature when it comes to child care. Training can be given by government owned health centers.
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