Inquiry committee all praise for G.B.Panth faculty
SRINAGAR: The recent infant deaths at the G.B Pant hospital in Kashmir were not caused by a government-supplied vaccine as earlier believed, an expert team has said.
A five-member team from the Union Health Ministry probed the causes of the deaths of eight infants, seven of them at the GB Pant.
There were reports that the deaths were caused by Pentavalent vaccine administered to babies.
Team-head, Professor N.K. Arora said they spent a day going through lab records at the hospital to reach to the bottom of the problem.
Moreover, he said the team conducted field visits to check the immunization process and also visited six families whose infants had died “to get first-hand information”.
Mr Arora told reporters that the babies who died were “between the age of 45 days to four and a half months…vulnerable to diseases.”
“The most common cause of the death and diagnosis was septicemia but there were unusual causes like liver disorder,” he said.
The team has given their feedback to the state Health Minister, Shabir Ahmed Khan.
Prof Arora said management of patients at the hospital was also “absolutely marvelous”. He said the Pentavalent vaccine was not to be blamed either as they found “no significant or consistent change in the rates of death of infants” after the drug was introduced.
“It is equally important to emphasize that there was no programme error and it is running very well…,” he added.
