In the evening of December 22, 2009, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) began cooperating with the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office in the investigation of a suspected vaccine-related death in a seven-year-old boy who resided in Taichung.
Taiwan CDC pointed out that the agency has treated all vaccine adverse events cautiously and lucidly. However, the existing regulations do not allow performing an obligatory autopsy on suspected vaccine-related deaths to determine the actual cause of death.

In addition, to investigate a vaccine adverse event, a claim needs to be submitted to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), requesting compensation for an individual thought to be injured by a vaccine.To evaluate any vaccination policy and pacify any worries among the public, Taiwan CDC must gather experts in related fields to investigate any cases that do not file a claim seeking compensation for individuals thought to be injured by a vaccine in order to determine the cause of those cases.

The Central Command Epidemic Center (CECC) stressed that safety in a vaccination policy is a top concern.Besides continuously monitoring the safety of the vaccine, Taiwan CDC encourages the public to report any vaccine adverse event and Taiwan CDC will investigate all reported events.Any abnormal condition detected in a vaccine adverse event will be reported to the vaccine safety taskforce, which will gather experts, scholars and pharmaceutical authorities to discuss the abnormal condition, and the discussion result will be made available to the public. Taiwan CDC emphasized that making epidemic data accessible and transparent has always been one of the agency’s top priorities.Hence, the public do not need to doubt the agency.