Everything About the 13 South Korean Deaths After They Received a Flu Vaccine

It seems the troubles in South Korea aren’t over yet, and it’s not limited to Covid-19.

This year, winter will start for South Korea on 21 Dec 2020 and end next year on 20 Mar 2021.

According to a study published on europepmc.org, Korea experiences two influenza epidemics in most years; once during winter and the other, during the spring season.

On average from 2003 to 2013, about 2,900 people die per year due to influenza.

In 2018, the number of flu infections increased by 9 times according to Koreabiomed.com.

Free Seasonal Flu Vaccination

The South Korean government, in an attempt to stave off what could be a “twindemic” (basically two pandemics happening all at once – Covid-19 and influenza), decided to offer free seasonal flu vaccines to 19 million people.

The vaccinations will start from 8 Sep and will be given to:

• Babies over 6 months old
• Teenagers under 18 years old
• Pregnant women
• People above the age of 62

The vaccine is also improved and is stated to protect against four strains of flu instead of three.

The vaccine is supposed to take effect two weeks after injection.

Which sounds good, except it’s not smooth-sailing so far.

Setback After 2 Weeks

On 23 Sep 2020, around 2 weeks after the massive vaccination exercise started, the South Korea government was forced to suspend the vaccination programme.

The reason? About 5 million doses meant for infants and young children were exposed to room temperature during transportation, which led to safety concerns.

To make things were, the vaccines needed four to six months for a single batch to be produced, according to news reports.

This means that if a majority of the vaccine were found to be affected by the accident, South Korea will find almost 25% of its prepared vaccine gone.

3 weeks later, the vaccination programme resumed and some (read: 4.9 million) affected vaccines were administered to the people, according to the Korean Herald.

But the worst, apparently, is yet to come.

Mysterious Deaths

On 21 Oct 2020, Reuters reported that 5 South Koreans who were given the vaccine died.

The first death is a 17-year-old boy who died two days after receiving the shots and there was a 70-year-old man who passed away one day after receiving the shot.

The man has preexisting medical conditions but reportedly had no issue with past vaccinations.

According to various news outlets, the number of deaths due to the vaccine shots now stands at 13.

Two of the deaths could have been due to a severe allergic reaction, officials reportedly said.

The South Korean government says it believes that the deaths have no links to the vaccine, which is produced locally, but assure that they’ll investigate the deaths.

There are also reportedly no plans to halt the vaccination programme.

Pushback Against Vaccines

According to Yonhap news agency, about 8.3 million South Koreans have been given the free seasonal flu shot since vaccination resumed on 13 Oct 2020.

There were around 350 adverse reactions to the jab, it was reported.

In addition, the highest number of deaths due to vaccinations in South Korea previously was 6 in 2005.

Earlier in Oct 2020, a poll which was conducted to find out people’s confidence in vaccines and the results aren’t stellar, with 62% of more than 2,500 people saying they will not take the Covid-19 vaccine until all safety questions are answered.

In a separate report by the Korean Herald, a survey found that around 42% of 5,400 people will not get their children the seasonal flu vaccine jab this year.

Hopefully, South Korea will be able to get over this crisis.

By the way, did you know that South Korea is the top country people in Singapore hope to get a travel bubble with?