LABORATORY tests have proved that the polio, diphtheria, measles vaccines, which are given to the nation's children, are safe and up to the international standards, a Ministry of Health official said on Saturday. Thorough laboratory tests, conducted by the General Authority for Vaccines and Sera (Vacsera), proved that the oral vaccines, which are administered in Egypt, are safe and of high-quality standards, the Ministry's official spokesman said. Dr Abdul Rahaman Shahin, however, brushed aside widespread rumours claiming that a twin had died in Fayyoum Governorate after they had been given oral polio vaccines. "An autopsy conducted on the two babies substantiated that the two babies had died of a sudden lethal cardiac arrest caused by a rare vascular illness and not because of the oral polio vaccine that had been given to them," Dr Shahin said. He added that the autopsy results confirmed that the babies' bodies showed no signs of seizure after they swallowed the same vaccine, which had been also given to 42 babies on the same day in Fayyoum, some 100km south of Cairo. "All the 42 babies were in a very good health," Shahin said, confirming that the Ministry's vaccines and booster doses are completely safe and up to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards. "The vaccines are totally safe. Rumours being circulated by some media channels, newspapers and doctors about health dangers, or fatalities which mightbe caused by the vaccines are completely void from truth," Dr Shahin confirmed. However, he said that babies and toddlers with a medical history or a condition might develop an allergy from the vaccines. Dr Shahin's statements came on the eve of a free nationwide campaign to immunise over 11 million children under five against polio, a virus eliminated in most of the world. "A well trained army of health workers will be working for three days to immunise more than 11 million children nationwide," Dr. Shahin said. Children will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to immunise them against the highly infectious virus which has no cure and can result in total paralysis.
