Syrian opposition officials have warned the future of its vaccination efforts is under threat following an incident in which 15 infants died after receiving tainted vaccines.
Mohammad Saad, a health official working for the Syrian opposition inTurkey, said a fact-finding mission was attempting to retrieve samples from the region to quickly establish what went wrong with the measles inoculation.
An earlier estimate of 36 deaths was revised down on Wednesday. Some 100 other children are believed to have been affected and suffered reactions.
“Local doctors have collected samples from the affected to try to determine the cause of death and sickness,” he told the Telegraph. “When the samples arrive in Turkey we will take them for testing in the lab and will have the technical support of the World Health Organisation in doing this.
“When we have the results we will discuss the next steps. This will be very important. We understand it will take a lot of work on our behalf to restore the confidence of the people and convince them they can resume the vaccinations. I can only hope there was not a mistake from our team on the inside but we don’t know what happened”, Telegraph informs.
