The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has received a total of 22 claims requesting compensation for individuals thought to be injured by the pandemic influenza A (H1N1) vaccine. VICP has completed reviewing three petitions and determined that those three cases were not caused by the vaccine.CECC point out that VICP in Taiwan, which was established by law, functions independently and is not affiliated with any government sector.

On December 15, 2009, VICP called a conference to review three petitions. At the conference, VICP reviewed the cases’ clinical charts, laboratory data, medical treatment, disease development, past medical history, related vaccine characteristics, relevant literature and clinical experiences to determine the cause of each case and the association between the H1N1 vaccine and the case. According to the report released by VICP, the three cases were not associated with the pandemic influenza A (H1N1) vaccine.

Case # 1 is an 82-year-old man who had a history of high blood pressure, chronic heart disease, and chronic renal failure.He experienced dizziness and vomiting at noon when he returned home after getting vaccinated.When he lost his consciousness, he was rushed to the emergency department.He lost his pulmonary function before reaching the hospital.Since he did not develop any acute allergy-like symptoms after getting vaccinated, it was determined that the case probably had sudden cardiac arrest or acute cerebral vascular disease based on his medical history.

Case# 2 is a 1-year-and-7-month-old baby.The baby developed ptosis of the right eyelid in the afternoon after returning home from vaccination. According to the case’s clinical manifestation and laboratory data, it was determined the development of ptosis of the right eyelid was a result of the case’s autoimmune disease or viral infection. Case# 3 is a female high school student.She developed numbness and weakness on the left side of her body from head to toes 30 minutes after vaccination, dizziness, nausea and vomiting.However, several neurological examinations showed no abnormality.According to clinical literature, neurological disorder associated with vaccination takes days to develop, which is not the case in Case# 3.Therefore, it was determined Case# 3 was not caused by H1N1 vaccination.

CECC urged the public to not to be mislead by a few un-reviewed reports and urged the public to get vaccinated against H1N1 in time. In the future, information related to the reviewing progress of all petitions requesting compensation for individuals thought to be injured by the vaccine, excluding confidential information, will be posted on the CECC website at www.h1n1.gov.tw.