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October 9, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Denmark Supplies Emergency TB Vaccinations After PowderJect Recall" Financial Times (www.ft.com) (10/09/02) P. 6; Jenkins, Patrick
Denmark's Statens Serum Institut (SSI) has agreed to provide 2.5 million doses of tuberculosis (TB) vaccine to England, enabling the restart of a TB vaccination program for children. The program was stopped in August, after tests indicated that some batches of PowderJect's BCG vaccine were not as potent as they should be. The new shots will first be administered to young children with families from high-risk areas of the world for TB; however, the annual school vaccination program may not begin just yet. While SSI quickly replaced PowderJect as the BCG vaccine supplier to Ireland and Irish officials said that any children who had received the PowderJect shots would be retested and revaccinated, if necessary, British officials resisted pressure to do the same, arguing that even though the PowderJect vaccine was below regulators' potency targets, there is no indication that the vaccine does not work.
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