Death of three children after a few hours of vaccination in Palamu’s Loyenga village on Sunday early morning sent shock waves around the State while putting grave question mark over the entire healthcare system. As per reports coming in, the children have been identified as Aryan Kumar, Sanju Kumari and Ujjawal Kumar; all around two years of age.
The children were reportedly vaccinated for Japanese encephalitis, measles and DPT on Saturday along with six other kids of the same village. Hours after that all of them developed symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, fever. Subsequently, the three of them succumbed.
Vijay K Singh, acting civil surgeon of the district said, “The children were vaccinated on Saturday afternoon.
They had fever around 7 pm the same day. Then they had loose motion and vomiting which took their lives. Death occurred after more than 15 hours of vaccination while the first onset of illness by way of fever was after six.” Singh added actual reasons behind the deaths were to be probed.
Parents on the other alleged that the children remained alive in acute distress for more than 15 hours and no better medical care reached to. Role of local ANM is also under question mark especially over quality of treatment given after the reaction of the vaccination surfaced. All the 9 were vaccinated by ANM Droupadi Devi.
Following the deaths, angry villagers blocked the road and took the nurses and staffs hostage. Police and district administration officials rescued the medical staff after pacifying the villagers.
Bihari Yadav uncle of the deceased Sanju Kumari said his niece had onset of fever at 7 pm on Saturday. “My child started vomiting and loose motion thereafter and finally she and other two died around 4 to 4.30 Sunday morning. Their bodies had one similarity in the form of open eyes and yellowish bodies,” he said.
The incident is doubly shocking since the district is the home turf of State Health Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi. On its part Chief Minister Raghubar Das expressed his grief and announced Rs one lakh to each of the affected families as compensation. He also assured that guilty would be punished at any cost.
Principal Secretary of the Health Department Nidhi Khare has ordered probe and directed the Palamu DC to assist in identifying those responsible. Director Health Services Sumant Mishra has been told to submit a report within week while Dr Ajit Prasad who is an expert in routine immunization and epidemiologist Dr Praveen Karn have been sent there to examine the situation locally.
The Department also went on quickly clarifying that the vaccines were not of rotavirus, a drive for which was launched by the Chief Minister on the occasion of world health day on Saturday.
The bodies later brought to Sadar Hospital in Daltonganj for autopsy. DSP Surjit Kumar said police have taken possession of the ice box and other items which were used in the vaccination along with distribution register of vaccines.
Post mortem were conducted on the behest of Chattarpur MLA Radha Krishna Kishore who said the families were reluctant to have this done but for lodging of criminal case to establish negligence post mortem was essential.
Instead created ripples quoting a woman about quality of the vaccines offered. “An educated woman who had brought her child for vaccination in Loyenga returned without getting her child vaccinated as she claimed she saw the vials of vaccination expired. I could not vouch for the veracity of what the woman said but talk of expired vaccine was there in the air,” said Kishore.