Effects of five-in-one vaccine worry CAP

PENANG: The Consumers Association of Penang has expressed its concern over the safety of the multiple vaccine combinations being offered to parents for their babies immunisation programme following the shortage of four-in-one vaccine recently.

CAP president S. M. Mohd Idris said there were no long-term safety studies carried out to ascertain the limit to the number of jabs a baby could tolerate after which damage could occur.

“No one is pausing to think of the possible long-term effects of pumping a cocktail of all the different types of vaccine into the immature immune system of young babies,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Even when injected individually, he added, the vaccines were already being associated with a number of conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, nerve damage and so on.

It was reported on Tuesday that parents have to opt for the three jabs of five-in-one vaccine instead of the usual four-in-one as it was almost out of stock in private clinics and hospitals nationwide.

The supply of the four-in-one vaccine (for protection against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and polio) had begun to dip since January. The depletion was reported to have driven parents to go for the five-in-one vaccine to include protection against meningitis, a potentially fatal disease.

Mohd Idris noted that stocks of the four-in-one vaccine would probably not be around for much longer as the Health Ministry planned to offer free vaccination against five diseases from July 1 and the private sector might want to match this offer.

“Parents will probably be faced with a no-choice situation,’’ he said.

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