Nepal Suspends Swine Flu Vaccine Due To 'Complications'

Nepali government has suspended the import and use of over 2.7 million pandemrix vaccines manufactured by a global company for protecting people from influenza - A/H1N1, generally known as swine flu. According to Sunday's Republica daily, the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) decided to immediately suspend import of pandemrix vaccines on the basis of its intra-ministry technical panel's recommendations following reports of complications. Some A/H1N1 flu patients have reportedly suffered symptoms of neurolepsy disease after receiving pandemrix vaccines manufactured by the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) -- a global pharmaceutical firm -- in some European countries. In the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden, according to Dr Laxmi Raj Pathak, spokesperson at the MoHP, some A/H1N1 flu patients, who received GSK-pandemrix vaccines, have suffered numbness while moving hands, legs and tongues.

Xinhua News Agency