KARACHI: A one-and-a-half-year-old boy Abdullah died allegedly after he was administered the wrong injection during a measles vaccination programme at a private hospital in Gulberg on Thursday.
The police, after registering the case, arrested the owner of the hospital. Meanwhile, the Sindh health minister has constituted a three-member committee to investigate the matter.
Abdullah’s family claims that the staff of the Expanded Immunisation Programme (EPI) was untrained. The town administration said that they had nothing to do with the incident and the district government directly deals with vaccination drives. However, the EDO Health, Karachi, said that it was the fault of the hospital administration as it could not give the child first aid on time.
“I don’t want to know how my son died. I just want to see these doctors behind bars,” said Sarfaz Ahmed, Abdullah’s father.
He said that his wife took their son to the hospital where the government had initiated a measles vaccination campaign. They reached there around noon and a few minutes after the vaccinator injected Abdullah, he lost consciousness. “No one treated my son, who passed away at the hospital,” he said.
Gulberg Town administrator Mohammed Latif Lodhi said that the town was not responsible for the incident as the EPI campaign was launched by the City District Government’s health department. He said that after the incident, they contacted World Health Organisation (WHO) officials who told him that this kind of thing had never happened before. “It looks like the child already had a medical problem,” he said.
EDO Health Shahab Imam differed. Talking to The Express Tribune, he said that the administration of the private hospital is to blame. “If the child was given a Solu-Cortef injection in time, his life could have been saved,” he explained.
He said the vaccination team also injected four other children. All of them went without any complaints.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed constituted a three-member committee under the supervision of special health secretary Dr Abdul Majid. Health minister spokesman Saleem Khan said that the committee will submit a report within three days.
The Yousuf Plaza police, on the complaint of Abdullah’s mother, has lodged a case under section 319/34. The SHO said the owner of the private hospital and the two vaccinators have been nominated in the case.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 16th, 2010.
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