Staff Reporter
The Standard
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A 37-year-old woman’s child was stillborn on Tuesday – just weeks after she received a vaccination against human swine flu (H1N1).
The woman was 28 weeks’ pregnant when she was admitted to Tuen Mun Hospital after she reported decreased fetal movement and no heart sound could be detected.
A spokesman for the Centre for Health Protection said there is “no medical evidence presently to suggest that the intrauterine death was related to the vaccination.”
But he said cases of stillbirths following swine flu vaccinations have also been recorded overseas.
“However, so far, no causal relationship has been found between [the] vaccination and stillbirths.”
Investigations into common causes of intrauterine death, including infection, genetic and metabolic disorders, are being carried out.
In Hong Kong, about 150 to 220 stillbirths are recorded every year.
Meanwhile, a 58-year-old doctor who developed a disorder after receiving a swine flu shot, has been discharged from hospital.
He is the first and only case so far diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome – in which the body attacks its own nerve cells – after receiving a human swine flu vaccine.
But authorities said the disorder may not be directly linked to the vaccination that he received on December 24.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok confirmed the doctor had been discharged from hospital.
“I am really happy that he has recovered so quickly and more or less completely within two weeks. This is a good sign that the treatment given to him is very effective,” Chow said yesterday.
The cardiologist, who runs a clinic in North Point, received the vaccine on December 24 and was admitted to hospital on January 2.