Girl crippled after tetanus vaccination

Always blame something else but the vaccine itself which is KNOWN to give
this reaction.

""It seems that the person who gave the vaccination wasn't competent,"
Iskandar said, adding that several things could have lead to Sinta's
paralysis.

"We could suspect that the substance injected was not the right vaccine, or
the nurse gave an overdose, or that the vaccine had expired," he said."


http://www.thejakartapost.com/detail...921.C03&irec=2

Girl crippled after tetanus vaccination

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta


Nine-year-old Sinta Bela would like to be president of Indonesia when she
grows up, or, failing that, a dangdut singer and dancer like Dewi Persik.

The dreams of the youngest daughter of dumpling seller Ujang and laundry
woman Nani, however, are looking dark, as she has been unable to move her
legs for 10 months.

In November last year, Sinta was vaccinated against tetanus at her private
Islamic elementary school, SD Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Al-Huda, by paramedics
from the Jatimulya health center in Bekasi.

A day after the shot, part of the government's Student Vaccination Program,
her legs started to feel weak. Eventually she was paralyzed.

"If I could still move my legs, I could dance like Dewi Persik," she said
while sitting in her brother's lap as the family waited in front of the
Jakarta Police public service center.

Believing their daughter's paralysis to be the result of malpractice on the
part of Umi Ropido, the paramedic who administered the tetanus shot, Sinta's
parents decided to report the matter to the police.

On Wednesday, accompanied by a Legal Health Aid Institute (LBHK)
representative, the family went to the Jakarta Police.

Along with reporting Umi, they also told police they wanted school principal
Jarkasih charged with negligence.

"I want the ones responsible for my daughter's illness to take
responsibility for their actions," Nani said.

LBHK head Iskandar Sitorus said Ropido and Jarkasih were alleged to have
violated the Indonesian Criminal Code and the 1999 Health Law.

He said only people with the necessary experience should carry out student
vaccinations.

"It seems that the person who gave the vaccination wasn't competent,"
Iskandar said, adding that several things could have lead to Sinta's
paralysis.

"We could suspect that the substance injected was not the right vaccine, or
the nurse gave an overdose, or that the vaccine had expired," he said.

Neither Ropido nor Jarkasih were available to comment on the allegations.

Nani said the principal had not announced the vaccinations beforehand. The
day after Sinta received the shot, her mother said, she could not lift her
legs or bend them.

Nani said she had asked Jarkasih and the health center about what had
happened but had not received a satisfactory explanation.

She and her husband reported Jarkasih and Ropido to Bekasi Police in May
this year, but the two were only charged with improper conduct.

Sinta has been treated at several hospitals, including Cipto Mangunkusmo in
Central Jakarta and Soekanto National Police Hospital in East Jakarta, but
her condition has not improved.

Nani said she had reported the case to National Commission for Child
Protection before going to the LBHK, which took Sinta to Hasan Sadikan
Hospital in Bandung in September.

"They x-rayed me and I had therapy there," Sinta said.

Her mother said that doctors at the hospital had said Sinta needed an
operation, which Iskandar added the LBHK was attempting to schedule for next
month.

He said the doctors had indicated that Sinta could possibly be cured.

Sinta, who has stopped going to school because of her illness, said she
wanted to be able to walk again.

"If I'm able to walk again, I want to go to school again, to go to Koran
reading again, and I'll pursue my dream of becoming president or a dangdut
singer," she said.

Scores Of Tsunami Survivors Dying Of Tetanus, Infections
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
From ProMED-mail

By Richard Spencer
The Telegraph - UK
1-15-5

Scores of survivors of the tsunami are dying of tetanus, a rare but
often deadly disease whose outbreak has caught health officials
completely off guard. Deaths have been reported in Banda Aceh and
Meulaboh, at either end of the Indonesian disaster zone in Sumatra.
They are almost certainly being replicated in the cut-off towns and
villages along the coast in between, say experts.

Tetanus, once better known as lockjaw, has been almost wiped out in the
West through childhood immunization and is now uncommon even in
disaster areas. One doctor said this was the worst outbreak the world
had seen in years. "I might have expected to see 1 case in my career,"
said Dr Charles Chan Johnson, from Singapore, who is working in Banda
Aceh's general hospital, Zainal Abidin. "Now I have 20 patients in a
single ward." Most had symptoms too far advanced to be treatable. "I am
afraid nearly all these patients will die," he said.

Immunization is regarded as the most important means of prevention
because once symptoms appear the mortality rate is high. But in Sumatra
primary health care was limited even before the tsunami which killed
more than 100 000 Indonesians.

Medical workers say the disaster provided perfect conditions for
tetanus. Many people were injured by the debris the waves picked up,
even if only with minor cuts, and ended up lying in the dirty water.
Nevertheless, the number arriving at hospitals and field clinics with
the classic "smile" of lockjaw has taken them by surprise. [The "smile"
referred to is "risus sardonicus", a characteristic expression with a
fixed grin and elevated eyebrows caused by spasm of the facial muscles
produced most often by tetanus - Mod.LL] Workers had been on the
lookout for cholera, dysentery and malaria, classic refugee-camp
sicknesses, rather than tetanus.

There have been 40 confirmed cases and 20 deaths in Banda Aceh, and 7
cases and 5 deaths in Meulaboh. But patients were still arriving at
Zainal Abidin last night, and Meulaboh hospital is seeing several
suspected cases every day.

Officials have still not assessed the scale of the outbreak along the
coast, where hundreds of thousands of survivors have fled. But workers
there may not even know why people are falling sick, said Dr Tony
Stewart, a consultant epidemiologist to WHO in Banda Aceh. "This is
totally unprecedented," he added. "This is now a really rare disease."

He had imported to Indonesia Australia's entire stock of specific
tetanus immunoglobulin. It amounted to 15 vials, a sign of how few
cases the West now suffers. Dr Johnson's ward is 1 of 3 which reopened
on Tue, 11 Jan 2005, in the hospital, which was inundated by mud during
the disaster.