Around 70 kindergarteners at a school in Tai Po have been injected with a vaccine that has been linked to deaths in South Korea, sparking concern among parents.
The blunder happened on Oct. 31, when personnel from Hong Kong Prevention of Infectious Diseases Action (HKPID) administered flu vaccines at the school, Apple Daily reported.
During the vaccination session, eagle-eyed parents noticed that the vaccine packaging looked suspicious. Earlier, the group informed parents that staff would be administering the Dutch-manufactured Influvac Tetra, but on the day, parents noticed that their kids were being given the VaxigripTetra vaccine instead.
The distribution of VaxigripTetra triggered panic in South Korea last month when local media reported that at least 83 deaths in the country had been linked to the vaccine. Most of the fatal cases involved elderly patients. Individuals in Taiwan have also experienced adverse reactions, and Singapore announced recently that they have halted the use of the vaccine.
Read more: Government health clinic administers wrong vaccine to infant
After being questioned, HKPID brought in the promised Influvac Tetra vaccines before continuing with the vaccinations.
The organization apologized to the parents of the affected children, explaining that an employee made a mistake and did not use the most updated documents, leading to the slip-up.
The employee was subsequently fired, though she claimed that the group’s upper management had asked that they use these vaccines.
Parents expressed anger over the incident. Some even phoned the police and the Department of Health, according to Apple Daily.
“Of course I’m worried, people have died from it,” said one parent.
However, she emphasized that the school was not at fault and that teachers were calling the parents of students as late as at 11pm to check that they were okay.
So far, no side effects have been reported.
Some private clinics in Hong Kong have reportedly stopped using VaxigripTetra, according to Apple Daily. A Sanofi spokesperson has said that the vaccines in Hong Kong are of a different batch than those in South Korea, and stressed that there is no causal relationship between their vaccines and the deaths.
