Jordanian students sickened by vaccines

Number of students who reported illness after anti-diphtheria and tetanus vaccines in Jordanian schools increased to 589 students in the schools of the capital Amman and in the northern, southern and central parts of the kingdom.

The Jordanian government has set up a committee to investigate this issue after the vaccination campaign, which started one week earlier, was suspended. On Tuesday some 160 students were admitted to hospitals after they received the vaccine, which was offered by UNICEF as a donation to Jordan.

The vaccines will expire at the end of October. UNICEF's director in Amman, Misrak Elias, said that the vaccines are valid and have undergone laboratory tests by the Jordanian government before they were delivered. She added that the vaccines "correspond to international and Jordanian standards, alike." She expressed UNICEF's readiness to "help the Jordanian government in making very precise laboratory tests."

She proceeded, "We will continue in providing donations, especially vaccines, which actively contributed to minimizing mortality rates and limiting diseases which used to kill infants in Jordan."

Meanwhile, Jordanian Health Minister Nael al-Ajlouni said that the "majority of the 589 poisoned children left the hospital," adding that only 33 cases are under observation. He considered what happened with the students as a "natural phenomenon," noting that the "manufacturing companies stress that these vaccines may reveal side effects following the vaccination process especially for children under 10-years old."

He asserted that until now it has not been proven that the vaccines contain impurities or were invalid. "If such things would have happened we would be then before a real catastrophe," he commented. He said the government will dispatch samples abroad to conduct further laboratory tests.

Some 28,589 students had received the vaccine. The vaccination campaign was decided to cover some 64,000 children out of 1.3 million Jordanian students.