China Investigating Deaths Related to Swine Flu Shots December 18
Chinese health officials have reported two deaths out of the 12 million who’ve received the vaccine. The Ministry of Health reported that the two died within hours of receiving the vaccine. According to a preliminary autopsy it’s believed that one of these individuals, a teacher died of a heart attack while paying basketball and not as a result of the vaccine but the other individual’s cause of death has yet to be evaluated. As the second autopsy is performed officials have pulled all vaccines associated with the same batch these people received as a precaution.
China took on the H1N1 virus by asking 11 biotech companies to make a vaccine against the virus. Sinovac, a company based in Beijing was the first to make a successful vaccine it was also the company that established that a single shot would be enough to inoculate against the virus. China was the first country to use the vaccine starting in September. By the end of October at least 54% of Chinese people said they didn’t want to get the swine flu vaccine fearing its safety. Three Chinese companies were asked to make for more than 34 million doses. So far 1,235 have complained of side effects, ranging from sore arms, rashes, and headaches, to anaphylactic shock and sudden drops in blood pressure among the 12 million inoculated.
China has lost 36 citizens to H1N1 and had 62,800 H1N1 cases thus far while the U.S. government estimates 4,000 American deaths and 22 million infections thus far.
Tags: China, death, H1N1, swine flu, vaccine