The boy, who passed away Oct. 23, was the first post-vaccination casualty noted by health officials: He received the flu shot two days earlier at Incheon, west of Seoul. The elderly male from Daegu city in the country’s southeast died Oct. 21 after receiving the flu shot a day before. City officials said the man had received vaccines since 2015 without any adverse reactions.
Despite the deaths, the country’s health officials refused to suspend the mandatory vaccinations – unless official investigations uncovered a connection. Preliminary findings into the vaccine fatalities have not established a link as of this writing.
Kim Joong-gon, an official at the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, told reporters during a briefing: “We have reviewed whether it is appropriate to continue the vaccination or better to suspend and wait for the results. We concluded that the deaths had no direct relations with the vaccination, given the limited data we have now and [the lack of] detailed post-mortem reports.”
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) Director Jeong Eun-Kyeong shared Kim’s sentiments. He said that while there would be an investigation into the deaths of those vaccinated, the agency had found no reason to suspend the large-scale flu vaccination program.
Even Park Neung-hoo, the Korean minister of health and welfare, has reiterated that the fatalities will not deter the compulsory flu vaccination program. Park told reporters during an Oct. 25 press briefing: “The seasonal flu has claimed some 3,000 lives a year in Korea alone. [The] benefits of taking flu shots far outweigh any side effects.”
According to Jeong, about 25 people who were immunized against the flu virus have died in South Korea since 2009 but remarked that a link between the deaths and the vaccination program has not been found. The Yonhap News Agency reported that the highest number of deaths connected to the country's seasonal flu vaccination was six casualties in 2005.
Vaccine safety is also an issue in South Korea
The fatalities dominated headlines in South Korea, just weeks after health authorities suspended the implementation of the national flu immunization program over safety concerns.
South Korean health officials announced in September plans to purchase additional flu vaccines for the upcoming winter, to inoculate 30 million people. The additional doses, a 20 percent increase compared to the quantity procured for the previous winter, came alongside efforts to prevent the health system from being overloaded with flu and COVID-19 patients.
However, the rollout of the flu vaccination program initially for 19 million Koreans was put on hold for three weeks after about 5 million doses were discovered to have been exposed to room temperature en route to a medical facility. The flu vaccine doses need to be refrigerated before being injected.
More than eight million people have received the flu vaccine since the program resumed Oct. 13, officials said. About 350 cases of adverse reactions such as fever, diarrhea and allergies have been reported.
People have been skeptical of vaccines even before the coronavirus pandemic struck South Korea. A poll conducted in Gyeonggi province found that 62 percent of 2,548 respondents would not get a COVID-19 even if a vaccine is approved until all safety concerns are addressed.
South Koreans’ fears toward a vaccine are justified. The average flu jab contains toxic chemicals such as mercury, formalin and aluminum – which are lethal to humans. No age group is exempt from the effects of vaccines, just like what happened to the 17-year-old boy and the elderly male who died following a flu jab.
South Korea’s plan to immunize its population against COVID-19 may even make matters worse: A study published in the journal Vaccine said that getting vaccinated against the flu may increase the risk of coronavirus by as much as 36 percent.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, South Korea has a 25,775 COVID-19 caseload with 457 fatalities and 23,834 recoveries. Given the study in Vaccine, a widespread flu vaccination may possibly trigger a spike in these numbers.
Read more news about the effects of lethal vaccines, just like what happened in South Korea, at VaccineDeaths.com.
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