DPT vaccine blamed for infant's death

3 February 2000

By Jahnavi Contractor http://www.timesofindia.com/030200/03mahm5.htm

VADODARA: The death of a two-month-old girl following the administration of DPT vaccine on Monday has delivered a severe blow to the cause of immunisation. City residents now blame the DPT vaccine for the tragedy.

"Government health workers regularly ask us to get our babies vaccinated, but if vaccines can cause death, none of us ever want our children vaccinated," a resident of the Vijaynagar locality said.

"She was a dainty little doll and, although just two months old, played with everyone and remained happy till the end," say residents of the locality the baby once inhabited.

They all share the Rathod family's deep sense of loss following the death of their infant daughter, who died minutes after being administered a dose of pulse polio and a DPT vaccine at the Vadodara Municipal Corporation's family health centre in Khanderao market.

Lalita and Dinesh Rathod had taken their baby for the second dose of pulse polio and DPT vaccination, due on Monday. "How was I to know that my baby would die?" sobbed a heart-broken Lalita. "She was fine in the morning, before we left for the clinic but by the time we got back, she was dead."

Neighbour Diwaliben Waghela, a trained midwife, said, "The baby was gurgling happily and playing with me moments before they left for the VMC clinic. But when they brought her back and I took her in my arms, she had red spots on her body and blood was oozing from her nose." She said this seemed to be the fault of the doctor who had injected the DPT vaccine.

When the couple returned with the baby, neighbours gathered and advised them to lodge a police complaint against the VMC's health department and the vaccinator.

"We all had seen the baby. She was healthy and did not have any health problems," said a neighbour wondering how she could die minutes after being injected.

Dinesh said he had taken his neighbours advice to go to the police. He recounted how, after their moped-ride back home, his wife said the baby appeared to be asleep. "It was only when Diwaliben took her in her arms that we realised something was wrong," he said. "We took her to a nearby clinic from where they asked us to go to Yogini Vasantdevi Hospital but the doctor said it was too late."

Following the Rathods' lodging a complaint at the Makarpura Police Station a post mortem examination was conducted at the SSG Hospital.