Health Ministry decides to resume flu vaccinations
Flu vaccinations allowed to resume following death of four patients Sunday
The decision followed the results of several tests run by the vaccine’s French manufacture as well as an autopsy of one of the deceased. Subsequent to the decision, the first person to receive the vaccine was to be the health minister himself.
The Health Ministry updated HMO’s of the decision Monday afternoon in preparation for an upcoming press conference.
A spokesman for the vaccine’s French manufacturer “Sanofi-Aventis”, announced that the company too decided to launch a comprehensive investigation of the matter, and would send two experts to Israel in order to look into the deaths.
The Health Ministry directed Israel’s HMO’s to stop administering the vaccines on Sunday, following reports that three patients in Kiryat Gat died after having been vaccinated. The death of a fourth patient became known while the circumstances of the original three deaths were being investigated.
Sanofi-Aventis’s spokesman also pointed out that the vaccine underwent a row of tests in France and Israel and that 140 thousand people had received the vaccine in Israel alone.
“We are taking this very seriously and we are studying the situation seriously. Still, we have complete confidence in the quality of the product. This vaccine saves thousands of people each year,” he said.
The four patients who died all suffered from heart disease, and the Health Ministry estimates that their deaths stemmed from their medical conditions.
Dr. Alex Levental of the Public Health Department reassured, “330 million people receive the vaccine each year worldwide. We’ve never seen this complication before. We think it is a coincidence.”
In a hearing convened Monday morning by Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri, senior members of the Public Health Department noted that there was no connection between the vaccinations and the death of the four patients.
“There wasn’t anyone at the hearing who thought the deaths were related to the vaccination,” a senior official said.
“The investigation we are conducting is to show the public that everything is being checked, so that the vaccination can be as safe as we know it to be,” he concluded.
