Doctors in the UAE have been urged to suspend the use of children’s vaccine Rotarix after the drug was found to be contaminated by a strain of pig virus.
The UAE Ministry of Health said on Wednesday doctors should temporarily stop using the vaccine, and ordered a recall of all stocks from hospitals and pharmacies in the emirates.
The warning follows the discovery by an academic team – later confirmed by US drug regulators - that the drug had been contaminated with DNA from a pig virus called porcine circovirus 1, or PVC1.
The drug, manufactured by UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, is typically given to infants aged 24-weeks or younger to protect against rotavirus, which can cause diarrhea and fever.
In a statement, the drug giant said the PCV1 strain is not known to cause illness in humans, and is found and consumed in everyday meat products.
A spokesperson for the UAE Ministry of Health, Dr Amin Al-Amiri, said the vaccine has a low uptake rate in the country.
“The vaccine, which is given to infants to inoculate them against the rotavirus, is very rarely used and there is no evidence at this time that it poses a safety risk,” he said in a statement issued by the federal news agency, WAM.
The vaccine has already been suspended by both US and European drug regulators, who have asked Glaxo to investigate how the viral strain contaminated the vaccine.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the risks from rotavirus, which kills an estimated 500,000 children a year globally, outweigh the potential risks from PCV1.
An estimated 69 million doses of the vaccine have been administered worldwide. Global sales of the vaccine in 2009 were $425m, Glaxo said.
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