""The deaths are a sheer coincidence. We are 100 per cent sure that the
deaths have nothing to do with polio drops," Dr Rao said.

Principal secretary (medical and health) I V Subba Rao said the post mortem
reports proved that the deaths were due to the vaccine."


Polio dropped from list of suspects
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/935121.cms
 
 
 November 25, 2004
  
 
 
 HYDERABAD: Two more babies who had been given polio drops last week died
at Penuballi and Aswaraopet mandals in Khammam district on Tuesday, but
experts and government officials took pains to explain that the vaccine
could not possibly have caused the deaths. These two deaths and one more in
Anantapur on Tuesday took the number of post-inoculation mortalities to
seven.
A postmortem on the exhumed bodies of four children who had died over the
weekend showed that they had succumbed to neonatal complications. Health
officials said none of the seven deaths could be attributed to the oral
polio vaccine drops. Nevertheless, the incident is being "critically
viewed" and samples of the vaccine given to the children are being sent to
the Central Drug Research Institute at Kasauli.

Family welfare officials said the children, most of them months old, either
had a medical history or died of reasons not linked to the polio drops. It
was a coincidence that the deaths have occurred after inoculation.

Dr R Gopalakrishna Rao, joint director of the family welfare department,
said two of the Khammam deaths were due to asphyxia (suffocation) caused by
vomit- "not caused by the polio drops"-and one was due to intestinal
obstruction. Some of the deaths could have occurred due to some substances
being administered to the babies by the mothers: one had received oil drops
in her nose and one was given a sugar syrup.

One of the seven children who died was a premature baby who had developed
respiratory problems after swallowing amniotic fluid during birthr. A
five-year-old girl who died in Kurnool was suffering from fits, Dr Rao said.

"The deaths are a sheer coincidence. We are 100 per cent sure that the
deaths have nothing to do with polio drops," Dr Rao said.

Principal secretary (medical and health) I V Subba Rao said the post mortem
reports proved that the deaths were due to the vaccine.