Contaminated vaccine kill 15 children in South Sudan

                                           A child held by his mother in order to be vaccinated (courtesy)

SOUTH SUDAN—At worst 15 innocents have been affirmed dead in South Sudan from a messed up attempt to immunise them against measles, officials say.

The children were vaccinated with the same untreated syringe and the vaccine itself was not stored properly, as the data was collected after a thorough investigation on the case.

They were  found with severe infection and sepsis as a result of the botched immunisation campaign.

“The team administering the campaign was neither qualified nor trained to vaccinate the children,” said the health minister.

Riek  Gai Kok added that  about 300 people were misled to the illegal vaccination process in the Kapoeta region, including 32 other children who fell  sick, but later saved.

The government said all of the children who died were under the age of 5. It is setting up a commission to determine who is responsible and whether victims’ families will be compensated.

“Children as young as 12 years old were administering the vaccines to others,” a report from  the  Associated Press said.

Sepsis is considered to be a very deadly immune response that is brought about by an infection which spreads fast in the body and it can also cause several organ failures and death as well.

South Sudan announced its independence in 2011, but has  struggled to maintain basic services-including  health care after a civil war broke out in 2013.

In 2016, South Sudan had at least 2,294 measles cases and 28 people died, according to U.N. data.