I had same jab as plane jump Alana.. it sent me raving mad
Family probe yellow fever link after BBC man comes f orward
AN EX-BBC journalist has revealed he became a “raving lunatic” after a yellow fever jab like the one given to plane-leap girl Alana Cutland.
Malcolm Brabant, 64, has contacted 19-year-old Cambridge University student Alana’s family, who are devastated by her 3,700ft plunge in Madagascar last month after suffering paranoia and hallucinations.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is probing the yellow fever vaccine after a spate of alarms for travellers.
Mr Brabant said after being given the vaccine Stamaril to fly to the Ivory Coast in Africa in 2011, he believed he was the messiah, telling a colleague in a wheelchair he could heal him.
He said as his psychosis worsened, he thought he was Sir Winston Churchill one moment and the devil the next.
After being let out of a hospital for Christmas in 2011, he said he heard voices telling him to, “kill! kill! kill!”, when he was holding a knife about to carve pork.
Award-winning foreign correspondent Mr Brabant has told Alana’s parents in Milton Keynes, Bucks, his research suggests young women are most at risk from yellow fever jabs, as well as those who are also taking the anti-malarial drug Larium.
Police in Madagascar are already investigating whether Alana was suffering from a reaction to anti-malarial drugs.
A family source last night confirmed she had received a yellow fever jab.
Cedric Martin, manager at luxury Anjajavy Le Lodge hotel, in Madagascar, where Alana was staying said had been “excited” when she arrived on July 16.
But he said her mental state declined dramatically within days.
He said she became so confused she said she feared being jailed in Madagascar if she failed to complete her conservation project on the local population of crabs.
Her parents Neil and Alison, both 63, exchanged frantic phone calls with her and were so concerned, they arranged for her to fly home to Britain early.
Before Alana jumped to her death from a light aircraft, Mr Martin said he went to check on her and found her staring into space.
He said: “Her eyes were vacant and she did not seem to have slept. She did not speak – but she was watching us.”
Fellow British passenger Ruth Johnson, a tourist, and the Cessna pilot fought in vain to stop Alana opening the plane door and jumping in the horror on July 25.
The yellow fever vaccine is recommended to any Briton visiting most of sub-saharan Africa, most of South America and parts of Central America and the Caribbean.
Tory MP Adam Holloway submitted a Parliamentary question to the Department of Health in February, asking if it would call on the vaccine’s manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur to undertake new research into the risk of side-effects, including psychosis.
Minister Jackie Doyle-price replied: “A recognised, very rare risk of Stamaril vaccine is Yellow Fever VaccineAssociated Neurotropic Disease.
“Whilst the symptoms of this can include confusion and acute focal neurological deficits, this is not typically associated with psychosis or other long-term psychi
atric disorders.”