The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, New Delhi

India has recalled over four million doses of a measles vaccine supplied by a south Indian drug manufacturer after four children died following inoculation with the drug, reports said Friday.

All state governments have been instructed to stop use of the measles vaccine manufactured by the Indian Immunological Limited until further orders," Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Further supplies from the manufacturer have also been halted, he said. The government late Thursday ordered the recall of some four million doses of the vaccine already supplied by Hyderabad-based Indian Immunologicals Limited out of an overall order of nine million, the Indian Express daily said.

The recall came after four infants who received the measles vaccine in the southern state of Tamil Nadu died on Wednesday.

Parents said their babies started frothing at the mouth and nose and died within 15 to 20 minutes of being administered the vaccine, news channel NDTV reported.

The state health minister has said the children might have had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine, noting that some 20,000 children in Tamil Nadu were inoculated against measles with the same drug Wednesday.

Samples of the vaccine have been sent to a national laboratory for testing and a team of health experts is examining how the vaccine was stored and how health workers administered it.

For now, Tamil Nadu state has suspended its measles vaccination programme and inoculation programmes in other states are also likely to be hit by the recall.

An Indian minister expressed concern that the development could jeopardise India's larger immunisation efforts, sometimes beset by rumours about the safety of the injections.

In the past, India's attempts to eradicate polio have been delayed after some Islamic clerics spread rumours the vaccines would harm Muslim children.