Japanese health officials to fly Canada; no change in plan to import H1N1 swine flu vaccine Pandemrix

Japan plans to import Glaxo’s flu vaccine Pandemrix to inoculate 37 million people

Japanese health ministry officials will fly to Canada by early December, to study the Canadian authorities decision to hold off on using a batch of its swine flu vaccine Pandemrix, reports said quoting a Japanese newspaper said.

Japanese health ministry’s decision come s in the wake of its plan to import GlaxoSmithKline’s flu vaccine Pandmrix to cover 37 million people in the year ending March.

However, there’s no change to Japan’s plan to import Glaxo’s flu vaccine Pandemrix.

A patient study which is currently under way in Japan to ensure the safety of Pandemrix hasn’t shown any serious side effects, stated a Glaxo spokesman in Japan.

Canadian health authorities has stopped using one lot of Pandemrix vaccine on Glaxo’s advice due to severe adverse reactions.

Update: South Korea drops plan to buy 3 million doses Glaxo’s H1N1 swine flu vaccine: Report

GlaxoSmithKline has asked that the October batch of H1N1 swine flu Pandemrix be taken out of circulation because it produced serious and immediate anaphylactic reactions in one out of 20,000 vaccinations, compared with one out of 100,000 in other shipments.

Following this, Canada’s H1N1 flu vaccine manufacturer has asked the provinces to temporarily discontinue vaccinating Canadians from a lot of vaccine shipped in October due to a higher risk of adverse reactions, according to Dr. Joel Kettner, Manitoba’s chief public health officer.

“We’ve been asked by the manufacturer GSK to not use this vaccine at this time pending further investigation,” he said.

GlaxoSmithKline has asked several provinces to set aside the 170,000 doses from the questionable batch.

More than 100,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine are being withdrawn across the country.

GSK said the batch recall is a precaution an they will investigate to see whether there is something wrong with the batch.

“GSK is taking this cautionary action because the Public Health Agency of Canada has received a higher than expected number of reports of anaphylaxis in this lot number compared to other lots,” the company said in a written statement.

One or two allergic reactions are expected in a batch that size. But health officials recorded six severe allergic reactions and alerted GSK, reports said.

However, the anaphylaxis reactions were short-lived and all the patients recovered.

Most of the vaccine Manitoba received from the suspect lot had already been used by the time the province received the alert. Of the 63,000 doses shipped, only 630 remained unused by the four regional health authorities in Manitoba that received them.

About 1,500 doses of the vaccine were sent to Ontario, but officials said none were administered. Officials are now shelving them until the investigation is complete.

The Alberta government has stopped giving out doses from the same batch, although it has  it had not seen any allergic reactions.

GSK’a H1N1 swine flu vaccine Pandemrix batch is being investigated.

Of the 6.6 million doses of H1N1 vaccine given so far to Canadians, there have been 36 serious adverse reactions reported, according to Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones.