Flu vaccine deaths: South Korean officials line up for shots after deaths fuel rumours of shoddy vaccines
- The head of the Disease Control and Prevention Agency received a flu jab on Thursday as part of the government’s attempt to bolster public trust in the vaccines
- A total of 71 people have died after getting flu shots, although the government said there was no link between the inoculations and the deaths
Jeong Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), followed the leads of Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun and Health Minister Park Neung-hoo in getting the shot as the government attempted to bolster sagging public trust in the safety of the free vaccinations.
Over the past three days, 12 more post-vaccination deaths have been reported in the country, bringing to 71 the total number of deaths that have occurred following flu injections since the government started offering them in a nationwide programme that started September 25. The government is aiming to inoculate 19 million people – it is mostly targeting the elderly and younger people, the most vulnerable age groups – to avoid a feared twin epidemic of both Covid-19 and seasonal influenza. Over the past month, some 10 million Koreans have received flu shots.
The authorities said the deaths have been coincidental to the vaccinations.
“Following examinations, the KDCA has come to a conclusion that there is little causality between the recently increased report of deaths and anti-influenza vaccination”, the agency said in a statement on Thursday.
The Korea Medical Association issued a directive to its members to resume flu jabs on Friday after a week-long suspension it had earlier recommended on vaccine safety fears. The free vaccines are supplied by six South Korean companies and France‘s Sanofi, while privately supplied flu vaccines are manufactured locally by two South Korean companies and in Germany by UK-based multinational company GlaxoSmithKline.