China investigates vaccine maker after baby deaths

China sent health experts to investigate a drug maker today to see if the deaths of several babies in recent weeks were related to vaccines they received in a government immunisation program.
A team of government investigators has been sent to Biokangtai, a drug maker based in the southern city of Shenzhen, state broadcaster China Central Television said, amid growing public concern about the safety of its products.
The probe was launched after provincial and health authorities separately reported that since November, around a half-dozen babies died shortly after they received hepatitis B vaccines made by Biokangtai. One case has been ruled out while the others were still being investigated.

Repeated calls to Biokangtai's Shenzhen headquarters were disconnected after a few rings. In a statement earlier this month, the company said it was confident in the safety of its products and that the deaths could be caused by underlying diseases that were incubating in the babies and coincidentally started showing symptoms after the inoculations.
"Coincidental diseases arise the most easily and are the easiest to misinterpret," the statement on Biokangtai's website said.
A senior government expert in diseases said vaccine-related deaths could be due to coincidence, but that Biokangtai was not in the position to make an objective assessment.

"We should not treat the company's statement like a conclusion," Dr Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist with the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a phone interview. "They may be trying to protect their self-interest. Or they may have a lot of confidence in their product."

Hepatitis B is a chronic liver infection that is spread through the blood or bodily fluids of infected people. It can cause liver inflammation and jaundice.
The vaccines were being given to children free of charge as part of the government's national immunisation program. But Chinese health authorities suspended the use of Biokangtai's hepatitis B vaccines last Friday after the first deaths of babies were reported.
Four babies reportedly died in the southern province of Guangdong, although one of them was said to have died from pneumonia. The National Health and Family Planning Commission reported that two babies in Hunan province and another in Sichuan had also died in a similar way.