Protein black and white

Immunologists are looking for reasons for the painful reaction of children to the influenza vaccine

The side effects of the preventive direction of the national project “Health,” aimed at covering 22 million Russians with flu vaccinations by the end of December, seem to have brought another headache to the Ministry of Health and Social Development. This week the investigation into a high-profile incident in the Stavropol Territory is due to be completed, where vaccinations recently caused a severe allergic reaction in three schoolchildren. Experts will have to answer the main question: what caused the hospitalization of children - a tragic combination of circumstances, medical negligence, or a failure occurred in the production cycle of the domestic vaccine "Grippol", on which health authorities have relied in recent years?

The developers of the drug, which vaccinated about 80 million Russians over eight years, consider personal intolerance to egg whites to be the most likely cause of the angioedema observed in Stavropol schoolchildren. This, according to Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rem Petrov, is the only contraindication of the Russian vaccine. “Today, most vaccines in the world are produced on a virus that is grown on chicken embryos,” he explained to Vremya Novostei, “so it is inevitable that egg white residues will get into the vaccine. Those who are allergic to protein should not inject the drug.” According to Mr. Petrov, there are few such allergy sufferers - on average, one person per 100 thousand. However, isolated cases of complications are possible, especially if health workers are not interested in the condition of the person being vaccinated and do not study the patient’s record.

However, the pharmacological investigation launched by the State Research Institute for Standardization and Control of Medical Biological Preparations named after. L.A. Tarasevich (GISK), has not yet established that the affected schoolchildren were prone to allergies. “We could not find anything in the anamnesis of these children indicating that such a reaction to the introduction of the vaccine was possible,” Nikolai Ozeretskovsky, head of the laboratory for assessing the effects of medical immunobiological preparations at GISC, who arrived in the Stavropol region, told reporters. At the same time, the inspectors considered it proven that complications arose after vaccination with Grippol from a batch received from Ufa, where one of the enterprises of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Microgen is located. According to Mr. Ozeretskovsky, “specialists will trace the entire path of creating vaccine series to which allergic reactions were noted.”

In turn, Rem Petrov believes that a violation of the vaccine production technology would have caused not three cases of complications, but widespread hospitalization of vaccinated schoolchildren. “But these are preliminary conclusions for now,” the academician explained, “tomorrow our specialists are going to join the Stavropol investigation.” NPO Microgen also denies the possibility of production failures. As the company's press service told Vremya Novostey, the inspections, which will last at the Ufa enterprise for another two to three days, have not yet discovered any deviations from the vaccine production technology. “Similar reactions have occurred in patients who were administered Grippol before,” Microgen press secretary Timofey Peshkov told the newspaper. -- Further investigation of not only the production technology of the drug, but also the methodology of its development, may show that a reduction in the dose of the drug for children will be necessary. Or an additional outreach campaign.”

It is noteworthy that the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, who has taken special control of the investigation, does not yet intend to slow down the pace of vaccination. “About 15 million people have already been vaccinated,” he said yesterday in Novosibirsk, “there are still 7 million left to be vaccinated.” At the same time, the basis of immunoprophylaxis remains the same “Grippol”, according to Academician Petrov, the most modern domestic anti-influenza drug. “We will be able to overcome the only negative quality of influenza vaccines in two years,” he assured Vremya Novostei, “when our scientists, together with The Dutch will develop drugs whose virus will be grown not on chicken embryos, but on cell culture.”

Yulia KHOMCHENKO