South Korea medical association says flu vaccine programme should be suspended

South Korea’s medical association said on Thursday the government should suspend a flu vaccine programme following the deaths of at least 13 people who received a shot in recent days.

Health authorities said they have found no direct links between the deaths and the vaccines, but Choi Dae-zip, president of the Korean Medical Association, told a news conference that the inoculation programme should be put on hold until the government secured the safety of the vaccines.

Coming just weeks after the roll out of the national vaccine programme was temporarily suspended over safety worries, the deaths, which include a 17-year-old boy and a man in his 70s, have dominated news headlines in South Korea.

With winter approaching, the country is planning to inoculate 30 million people in a bid to prevent the health system being overloaded by patients with flu and COVID-19 exposure.

However, the start of a free jab programme for around 19 million eligible people was suspended for three weeks after it was discovered that some 5 million doses, which need to be refrigerated, had been exposed to room temperature while being transported to a medical facility.

Officials said 8.36 million people have been given the free flu vaccine since inoculations resumed on Oct. 13.