5-month-old boy dies hours after vaccination
Vasanthakumari holds
on to her dead son’s fingers at her house in
Gandhinagar near ICF, in Chennai on Thursday./Shiba
prasad sahu
19 Sep 2008 03:06:00 AM IST
CHENNAI: A five-month-old boy died within a day of
being administered Hepatitis B, DPT vaccines and
polio drops.
Suriya’s parents suspect that a mix up of vaccines
at the Corporation’s primary health centre (PHC) in
Ayyanavaram is to blame for his death. However, the
alleged negligence may go unpunished because they
have not lodged a complaint with the police to avoid
a post-mortem.
Suriya’s mother Vasanthakumari said he was
playing in her lap when the doctors vaccinated him
around 11.30 am on Wednesday. “Within an hour of
reaching home, the baby developed fever.We thought
it was normal,” she said. The child’s condition
deteriorated when Vasanthakumari gave him a tablet
that she got from the PHC to administer in case of
fever.
“The fever did not subside. He also developed
dysentery and by 9 pm he almost collapsed.We rushed
him to a private hospital, but were told to go to
the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.
Around 10.30 pm, when we reached KMCH, the
doctors said there was no hope. Then we took him to
the Institute of Child Health in Egmore, where the
doctors declared that he was brought dead,” Suriya’s
father, Rajesh Kannan said.
“When the doctors asked us to go for a post-mortem,
we did not have the heart to let it be done on a
five-month-old child,” said the parents.
The doctors of the health centre said they had
administered the vaccine to 30 babies, but no other
child had developed any complication.
Mayor M Subramaniam told Express that a vigilance
inquiry had been ordered into the incident and
action would be taken on the basis of the findings.