Authorities are investigating after 150 children developed high
fever following measles vaccinations in Lingbi County,
Anhui Province.
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More than 3,000 children aged 1-14 in Lingbi's Xiangyang
Township were vaccinated on March 14 by the county Center for
Disease Prevention and Control.
The township hospital reported to the county government that 32
students developed steady high fever after vaccination. But a
reporter sent by a newspaper to schools in Xiangyang found the
figure was at least 150. The Anhui Commerce newspaper is
based in the provincial capital, Hefei.
Treatment continued for the victims, all primary school
students, whose fevers were as high as 41 degrees Celsius. Fevers
would come back about two hours after medication drips stopped, the
newspaper report said.
Doctors from the county medical center said the victims were
suffering flu and colds.
However, measles vaccines may cause low fever among at most 1
percent of recipients.
Medical workers drained the vaccines into injectors beforehand,
instead of preparing a vaccination before each student, the
newspaper said, citing teachers at several schools.
A third-grader at Wangji Primary School, to whom the newspaper
gave the alias of Wang Hao, received an injection to treat his
fever that morning before the vaccination.
Wang reportedly told a vaccination worker about it, but the
worker gave him the measles shot without taking his temperature
first.
(Shanghai Daily March 25, 2006)