April 14: A two-month-old infant died a day after vaccination on Thursday at Shakaran village in Vargal mandal of Medak district. This is the fifth incident of a child dying after being vaccinated this year. However, district health officials refused to link the death to the vaccine.

Dr C. Ranga Reddy, district medical and health officer of Medak district, said that on Wednesday the infant, Kumari Keerthana, had been administered a DPT vaccine and the child had died at 3 am on Thursday. “The cause of death is being investigated. We don’t think that the death is related to vaccines because 10 children were administered vaccines from the same vial and nine of them are doing fine. So, there was no problem with the vaccines or their storage. Mild fever is also common in children post administration of vaccines. Investigation is on and we suspect that the child might have had some prior illness,” said the DMHO.

In January, around 60 lakh children in AP were administered polio drops and four deaths had been reported from West Godavari, Krishna, Nalgonda and Chittoor districts. However, according to reports of the Medical and Health Department, investigation had revealed that the deaths were due to pre-existing ailments and one due to asphyxia and not connected to the polio drops. Health Department doctors had also advised against taking children for vaccination if the child had problems like fever and diarrhoea. Doctors insist that parents wait for a day or two for the child to get well and then take him/her for immunisation to prevent complication.